Everything Paid For
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Description
Robley Wilson’s third book of poems is written in a delightful variety of forms--syllabics, couplets, nonce sonnets, internal rhymes, and a marvelously supple blank verse. His concerns are the age-old concerns of being human: the difficulty of loving and communicating, the maddening challenges of living a "normal" life in suburbia, the ripple effect of our every act on others. But there is nothing dour in his approach. His tone is often wry and witty, always thoughtful. He digs deep and comes up with poems written from totally unexpected perspectives--the Kent State massacre from the point of view of one of the now-aging National Guardsmen; World War II from the point of view of a German girl chosen to present flowers to General Himmler; or a man living (literally) on the moon. Wilson has published four books of stories, and his gift as a storyteller is apparent in these poems. He sets the scene, gives us the facts--of a life, a mood, a moment--and we are drawn into the world of each separate poem. "Judge not . . ." is implicit, and we see ourselves in these poems and learn about ourselves as we read. Robley Wilson, editor of the North American Review, is professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. He has published two previous books of poetry, Kingdoms of the Ordinary (1987) and A Pleasure Tree (1991). -- Provided by publisher
Keywords
Poetry -- 20th century; Poetry -- Literary collections; Poetry;
Document Type
Book
ISBN
9780813017150
Publication Date
1999
Publisher
University of Florida Press
City
Gainesville, FL
Department
Department of Languages and Literatures
Object Description
62 p. ; 23 cm
Language
en
Recommended Citation
Wilson, Robley, "Everything Paid For" (1999). Faculty Book Gallery. 70.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/facbook/70
