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Ronald Wallace

Ronald Wallace received his BA from the College of Wooster (Ohio) in 1967 and his PhD in English from the University of Michigan in 1971. He has taught at the University of Wisconsin from 1972 to the present, and is currently Felix Pollak Professor of Poetry and Halls-Bascom Professor of English. He co-directs the program in creative writing, and serves as poetry editor for the University of Wisconsin Press’s Brittingham and Pollak series. He is the author of twelve books of poetry, fiction, and criticism, including LONG FOR THIS WORLD: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS (Pittsburgh 2003), THE USES OF ADVERSITY (Pittsburgh, 1998). TIME’S FANCY (Pittsburgh, 1994), QUICK BRIGHT THINGS (Mid-List Press, 2000). and GOD BE WITH THE CLOWN: HUMOR IN AMERICAN POETRY (Missouri, 1985).

Author

How Laughter

Tripped us up. Slapped us with his bad jokes, tickled our childhoods mercilessly. How anything, once, was funny— the peekaboo face in the cradle; the goofy hoop! on the nose; the hilarious grade school hijinks: Rusty Bedsprings by I. P. Knightley; [...]

The Old West

In the Sonoran Desert Museum on the edge of the Saguaro National Monument, that stretch of low hill and arroyo that every Western movie hero has ridden his rental horse through, an elderly woman is crying in the heat. Her husband is shouting at her a [...]