Ronald Wallace

The writer-poet Ronald Wallace is Felix Pollak Professor of Poetry and Halls-Bascom Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Recently, I asked him what he was reading. His reply:

I'm just back from a week hiking in the Tetons where I read Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping again, and am in the middle of Gilead with Home on tap.

I'm now beginning to read the 800 poetry book manuscripts submitted to the Brittingham and Pollak Prizes in poetry at the University of Wisconsin Press (I read something in each submission) which leaves me time to read little else during September, October, and November.

After that I plan to return to reading poetry in translation, a project I began this summer (Neruda, Vallejo, Tranströmer, Issa, others).

Ronald Wallace's latest book of poetry is For a Limited Time Only. He is the author of seven previous books of poetry, including: Long for This World: New and Selected Poems; The Uses of Adversity; Time's Fancy; People and Dog in the Sun; and The Makings of Happiness.

His works of literary criticism include: God Be with the Clown: Humor in American Poetry; The Last Laugh: Form and Affirmation in the Contemporary American Comic Novel; and Henry James and the Comic Form.

Read a selection of Wallace's poems and learn more about his work at his website.

--Marshal Zeringue