Poetry Set

Although the volumes in Poetry Set contain poems that are not about family, family is the focus. Ruth is the poet's mother, Asher and Joshua his sons, and Twins his daughters.

Ruth by William Wallis

The poet praises and mourns his mother. Some poems speak of boyhood memories of simple tasks such as making the bed:

      Sheets snap out soft before us;
      Then we smoothing fit them
      About cloth-and-wood frames
      That lie heavy to the touch.

Other poems map the struggle of dealing with the particular loss of a parent. In the process, a gentle, good person (in the midst of the world's evil) emerges, organic verses tracing her existence from girlhood to death and showing her lasting influence on everyone she touched. The poet seeks to recreate

The girlish sweetness, the lilt of gentle voice
We imitate now for our children, as they
Swirl through the space you once filled.

Recreate with the poet those special qualities you knew in another.
Order your copy of Ruth by clicking here.

Asher (Revised Edition) by William Wallis

The original, Europe-flavored song of love for the first son is, in revision, imbued with a metaphysical sheen. Photographs trace the growth of Asher and the building relationship of father and son.

Your first breath seemed
To me the breath of God.
Pale and pure, it flooded
The surface of my face.

The poet argues that children alone teach adults the way to love completely; before that, there is eros—as likely to destroy as to create. The son's birth and growth move the poet to reflect on his own father.

But my aim is unmistaken; I know
Your heart not, surely as I hunt my own.

A poet on parenting? On a similar subject, Freud said the poet has always known it. Order Asher by clicking here.

Joshua by William Wallis

OUT OF STOCK

In appreciation of God's blessing — a second son — the poet sets down an expansive record of the new life in a work that would be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Poetry Division, 1994. . . . My son's tiny hands close over my eyes in a petalling veil, And I must guess who is there behind me. Is it the shield and rose of time, my playful Responsibility, and the first form of love?

As the new life is recorded, the poet rediscovers love of God with child-like simplicity and makes a new discovery of religious law as basis for loving mankind and healing the world.

                                       And I thank God for those moments
                                       When I, most fortunate of men,
                                       Pause among the beauties of my home,
                                       Feel its unchanging qualities of light
                                       Enter me, hollow out my bones,
                                       Prepare me for flight.

Just because Asher was first, that doesn't mean you can't order Joshua first.
Simply click here.

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