Mark Wallace

Felonies of Illusion Mark Wallace

Poetry. FELONIES OF ILLUSION is the newest offering of poems from poet Mark Wallace, whose previous titles include HAZE: ESSAYS POEMS PROSE and NOTHING HAPPENED AND BESIDES I WASN'T THERE. 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.