As part of English Week, MSU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives is sponsoring a panel discussion, “Introducing Robert Wallace, Poet, Prosodist, and Literary Editor,” led by Christine Wallace, Tracie Gieselman France, and Jim Baumlin.

This event will also serve as the launch of The Orbit of Meter: Writings on Poems and Prosody by Robert Wallace, edited by MSU’s James S. Baumlin and Anne Marie Baker, with forward by Christine Wallace. The new book, published by the Ozarks Studies Institute, mounts a rigorous defense of his original—and still controversial—theory of English prosody.

Wallace, a Springfield native, forged a distinguished career. As a poet, teacher, and editor of Bits Press, Wallace was a prolific letter writer whose correspondents included such literary giants as William Carlos Williams, John Updike, Dana Gioia, Donald Hall, Ted Hughes, Linda Pastan, X.J. Kennedy, and Mary Oliver. Materials on display in the Robert Wallace Collection in the MSU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives aim to highlight his editing skills and literary correspondence.

A tour of the Robert Wallace Collection in the Archives will follow the presentation. Students of literature, creative writing, literary editing, and professional publishing will take delight in the panel discussion and archival tour!

This English Week event takes place April 17, from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. in the Ozarks Room, Meyer Library 302.