Long for This World: New and Selected Poems

by Ronald Wallace

Long for This World features the best of Ronald Wallace's work from his previous collections of poetry--Plums, Stones, Kisses & Hooks, Tunes for Bears to Dance To, People and Dog in the Sun, The Makings of Happiness, Time's Fancy and The Uses of Adversity--along with a generous selection of twenty-six new poems. If Wallace's recent poems sometimes seem darker and deeper, more meditative and complex, less sanguine about the tragedies of daily life,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822958147
• ISBN13: 9780822958147
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The Scent of Oranges Mingling with Kisses

There are moments in your life when poetry is the only way you can feel safe in a world that hurries past all you want to enjoy and observe. Long for This World by Ronald Wallace allowed me to slow down, access a wide range of subjects and enjoy some stunning moments that are reflections of his appreciation for beauty. I found his memories of women to be especially stunning. Not only does Ronald Wallace display a keen sense of observation, he weaves a subtle thread of memory through some poems and then presents a surprise ending. I loved "Oranges" because in this story he tells of how he eats an orange, how it tastes, what he thinks about in regards to how the world appears and then ends the poem with an exotic image of sensory bliss. I was so delighted with this poem I had to read it to a friend, who appreciates poetry. I think I've peeled the zest from so many oranges, that the poem was filled with the scent of orange oil in my own memory. While I thought this might be the most interesting poem in the book, I was to be surprised again and again. The Nude Gardener will be an absolutely amusing poem to anyone with a good sense of humor and a bit of insight into the world of men's minds. The ending is again almost an abandonment of all the former observations. Some of the last few lines of his poems change the entire tone and awaken a deep appreciation for life itself. They are almost a submission to the inevitability of feelings. I was not prepared for Fresh Oysters & Beer and it struck me as being especially humorous. There is a line in this poem that is silly, but quite amusing. Ronald Wallace breaks free from melancholy mediocrity during a situation that might be trying to some parents and sees the humor and there is so much love in this poem for his daughter who is at this time still trying to find herself in a world of conflict about survival. While I will never rummage through an attic, because I've moved too many times, I thourally enjoy reading about people who have attics filled with memories. Here, Ronald Wallace finds notes his father wrote in college and has his own contemplations about imagination. Maybe imagination is just a form of memory after all, locked deep in the double helix of eternity. Ronald Wallace once said that he wanted to make something beautiful that didn't exist before and in this book, he creates worlds I didn't know men experienced. I will never think of oranges in the same way again. This book is a collection of poems from a career spanning two decades and it took three years to complete the selection process. Wallace is the Felix Pollak Professor of Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and codirects the creative writing program. He also spends time at his forty-acre farm in Bear Valley, Wisconsin. You may also enjoy additional collections of poetry, including: The Makings of Happiness, Time's Fancy and The Uses of Adversity. ~The Rebecca Review