A collection of contemporary American poetry for the general reader compiled to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Pitt Poetry Series.

"The Uses of Adversity— titled after the line from As You Like It, zSweet are the uses of adversityy - is a collection of one hundred sonnets combining the craftiness of traditional form with the effortlessness of free verse. The language is often richly textured and musical, often plain spoken and conversational, but always witty and accessible. The subject matter ranges widely from Rootie Kazootie and Froggy the Gremlin, Howdy Doody and Elvis...

Long for This World features the best of Ronald Wallace's work from his previous collections of poetry -- Plums, Stones, Kisses & Hooks (1981), Tunes for Bears to Dance To (1983), People and Dog in the Sun (1987), The Makings of Happiness (1991), Time's Fancy (1994), and The Uses of Adversity (1998) -- along with a generous selection of twenty-six new poems. If Wallace's recent poems sometimes seem darker and deeper, more meditative and complex, less...

Finalist, 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, 2021 Rilke Prize
Imperial Liquor is a chronicle of melancholy, a reaction to the monotony of racism. These poems concern loneliness, fear, fatigue, rage, and love; they hold fatherhood held against the vulnerability of the black male body, aging, and urban decay. Part remembrance, part swan song for the Compton, California of the 1980s, Johnson examines the limitations...