{"id":375,"date":"2016-01-22T21:44:35","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T02:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=375"},"modified":"2016-01-22T21:44:35","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T02:44:35","slug":"review-of-for-dear-life-by-ronald-wallace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=375","title":{"rendered":"Review of For Dear Life by Ronald Wallace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wallace<\/a>Ronald Wallace. For Dear Life. <\/em>University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. 75 pgs. $15.95<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Lynn Domina<\/p>\n

For Dear Life <\/em>is the most recent collection by Ronald Wallace, a steady poet who has, for the past several decades, published a new collection (as well as books in other genres) every few years. Although he writes most often in received forms, his use of meter and rhyme is subtle (I am tempted to say natural). He responds to the tradition comfortably, with a light hand, adapting it to a contemporary American idiom, expressed in a conversational tone. The effect on the reader is gracious rather than insistent, invitational rather than adamant. Reading these poems, I appreciated Wallace\u2019s reliance on traditional forms, but I didn\u2019t feel battered by the patterns, as occasionally occurs with some neo-formalist poetry. Instead, I admired how his facility with metrical patterns, and variations on metrical patterns, enhanced the poems\u2019 tight language.<\/p>\n

The opening poem considers the paradox of paradise\u2014for who among us hasn\u2019t longed for that perfect home, with perfect weather and a life of ease? Ease breeds restlessness though, as this Adam, this Eve, and this God soon discover. At eighteen lines, \u201cThank God\u201d is not a sonnet, but it is informed by a sonnet\u2019s strategies. Though not strictly iambic, the lines average ten syllables. Wallace abandons end rhyme until the final lines, when he emphasizes closure by rhyming \u201ccould\u201d with \u201cgood!\u201d Most significantly, the poem turns about two-thirds of the way through, not after line eight as in a sonnet, but after line ten. Until then, the poem consists of a series of judgments on Eden: \u201cWhere were \/ the restaurants, the music halls, the movies? \/ Where were the children to badger and tax them?\u201d Where, in other words, is variety, or challenge? Uninterrupted continuity mars perfection with monotony. The poem continues with an ironic use of a common expression:<\/p>\n

Thank God, <\/em>Eve thought, for the snake and the tree
\nthat promised such interesting suffering!
\nThank God, <\/em>Adam thought, for Eve
\nwho knew that things couldn\u2019t go on like this,
\nwho could teach him to love pain and loss!
\nThank God, <\/em>God thought, He had left them
\nto their own best devices, so they could
\nget out while the getting was good!<\/p>\n

The idea that Eden could be understood as perfect only temporarily isn\u2019t new. What\u2019s interesting about this poem is the amusing hyperbole Wallace relies on at the introduction of God, the irony of God saying \u201cThank God\u201d that the creatures had known better than the creator. In this poem, God is consciously anthropomorphized as a figure who isn\u2019t so omniscient\u2014for God apparently hadn\u2019t realized that perfection wouldn\u2019t remain perfect for long. God experiences surprise and relief, emotions that can be experienced only if one isn\u2019t sure of the future.<\/p>\n

The word choice in this passage is interesting, too. Nearly all of the words are monosyllabic, with a few of the lines consisting exclusively of monosyllables, a fact that permits a quick pace\u2014with the exception of \u201cthat promised such interesting suffering!\u201d According to the line above, the snake and the tree make this promise, but it\u2019s not only the suffering that\u2019s interesting here; it\u2019s the word choice also, for \u201cpromised such interesting suffering\u201d elongates the rhythm and emphasizes the sibilants. The sound of the snake is reproduced here, contrasting with every other line. This line, in challenging the reader\u2019s expectations, demonstrates how variation from a pattern can function effectively, surprising the reader for a purpose.<\/p>\n

The most intriguing surprise of this book, though, lies in Wallace\u2019s adaptation of the sonnet. As anyone who has written numerous poems in the same form knows, eventually its challenges dissipate. The writer either tries a new form or tries a new approach to the old form. For Dear Life <\/em>contains nearly two dozen poems (Wallace calls them sonnets, though because they lack end rhyme and iambic pentameter, I would call them sonnet-inspired) each containing a classic haiku formed by the last words of each line. The right margin of \u201cSong of Myself,\u201d for example, which cites Issa as its source, can be read downward to reveal the following haiku: \u201cheedless of the dew that marks our closing day we bind ourselves to others.\u201d The poem itself opens this way:<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s enough just to sit and meditate, heedless
\nof the needs of others close to us and of
\ntheir perpetual demands that seem to sap the
\nstrength from us\u2026<\/p>\n

The title obviously references Whitman, and the poem also comments on Thoreau\u2019s preference for solitude. Whitman\u2019s work suggests that he was much more sociable than Thoreau, but the two share a tendency to center their interpretations of the world within themselves. Thoreau enters the poem at its turn, but then it turns back on itself, contradicting the assertions it has made for thirteen lines:<\/p>\n

\u2026Thoreau knew how to spend the day
\nalone with his peas and beans and ledgers, and we
\ncan do the same. So much for the ties that bind.
\n“We must find our occasions in ourselves,\u201d
\nsaid self-reliant Thoreau. And so I\u2019m going to sing to
\nmyself. And the birds. And you. And one or two others.<\/p>\n

This speaker\u2019s song may be \u201cof myself,\u201d but it is not exclusively \u201cto myself.\u201d The accumulating\u00a0 \u201cAnd\u2026And\u2026And\u201d of the final line belies the speaker\u2019s insistence on solitude, or even on self-reliance. At least in terms of self-expression, human identity is communal.<\/p>\n

The rhythm of these lines is particularly interesting, especially as it is affected by the line breaks and the caesuras. While three of the lines are end-stopped, two with periods, these lines contain five internal periods. These hard caesuras sound even more definite than the end-stopped line breaks. As occurs in much of Wallace\u2019s work, this excerpt reveals how flexible the line can be.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s much more to discuss about For Dear Life\u2014<\/em>its humor, its arrangement, its responses to popular and classic culture. If I were able to interview Wallace, I\u2019d ask many questions about his craft. Until then, though, I suspect the answers can be found in a close and sustained reading of his work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ronald Wallace. For Dear Life. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. 75 pgs. $15.95 Reviewed by Lynn Domina For Dear Life is the most recent collection by Ronald Wallace, a steady poet who has, for the past several decades, published a new collection (as well as books in other genres) every few years. Although he writes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}