Articles about the Poet’s Work
Selected Poems
Wallace was recently asked to submit his ten best poems to be included in an anthology. To read his favorite poems, please choose Selected Poems. To begin instead with the explanation Wallace gives for selecting these particular poems, please choose “Toads, and All This Fiddle“. Links are provided between each poem and its explication in the article.
Sonnets
Wallace writes,”Some years ago it came to me that I should write a sonnet a day for a year. Why I had this revelation I’m not sure.” The result was over 400 finished sonnets, 100 of which were compiled into the volume, The Uses of Adversity (U. of Pittsburgh Press).
Wallace’s article,”He is Mad Which Makes Two“, discusses, in-depth, the writing process and his reasons for pursuing the sonnet. Because of the length of the full article, it has been broken into two webpages. For information on ordering The Uses of Adversity, please choose Publisher Information.
Stories
Wallace writes, “Ten years ago, on sabbatical from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I became interested in the short short story. … I started writing and then teaching the short short story. … In addition, Florida State University’s “World’s Best Short Short Story Contest,” the prize for which is a hundred dollars and a crate of Florida oranges and publication in Sundog magazine, provided incentive for writers to try short shorts. I tried to win that contest for a decade, and several of my efforts subsequently appeared in my first story collection, Quick Bright Things (Mid-List Press, 2000). This year I did finally win the “World’s Best” contest, which must qualify me (for fifteen minutes at least) as something of an authority on the form.”
To read the rest of the article Wallace wrote on short short story writing, please choose “Writers Try Short Shorts“. Because of the length of the article, it has been broken into three webpages. For information on purchasing Quick Bright Things, please choose Publisher Information.