Poetry. "A master at making genre question itself, Mark Wallace gets the square peg in the round hole again. A stark and aphoristic long poem about living and working during the war—direct, wise, and brave enough to skip the decorative—bumps up against the witty, clanging, angry, top-speed, palimpsestuous title series—lyrics that swallow their own tails. Wallace is cynical, clear-eyed, and resolutely jokey on commerce, war, love (the 'therapeutic use of commitment') and exhausted longing ('This day could be about today, leisurely and bright/if the days weren't stacked like nights inside it.') Nobody gets away with anything in FELONIES OF ILLUSION: we're all skewered until we grimace and grin"—Catherine Wagner.

Author City: SAN DIEGO, CA USA

Mark Wallace is the author of more than fifteen books and chapbooks of fiction, poetry and essays. TEMPORARY WORKER RIDES A SUBWAY won the 2002 Gertrude Stein Poetry Award. His critical articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, and he has co-edited two essay collections on contemporary poetics. Most recently he has published a book of short stories, WALKING DREAMS, and a book of poems, FELONIES OF ILLUSION. Raised in the Washington, D.C. area, he currently lives near the beach in Carlsbad, California.

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