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Hanging the Curveball
In Ron Wallace’s poems, the love of the game catches fire and flares into energetic, heartfelt poetry. Avoiding the usual clichés and well-worn metaphors, Wallace offers a Whitmanesque celebration of the physicality of the game, a vivid emphasis on the texture of the sport that reveals the souls of those who love it. Here are Wallace classics like “Learning to Speak Choctaw” alongside new poems on a great American subject. Read this book in the spring. Read it under stadium lights on a long summer evening. Read it again when October comes.
Benjamin Myers
Author of – Elegy for Trains
2011 Oklahoma Book Award winner
An Oklahoman's love affair with baseball is the subtitle for this work of forty narrative poems that contain at least a reference to the sport in some fashion. It features an introduction by DeDe Mucer Moffett, Bobby Murcer of the New York Yankees, niece and a collection of great quotes about baseball by an eclectic gathering of speakers, heavily weighted toward the New York Yankees.
Benjamin Myers
Author of – Elegy for Trains
2011 Oklahoma Book Award winner
An Oklahoman's love affair with baseball is the subtitle for this work of forty narrative poems that contain at least a reference to the sport in some fashion. It features an introduction by DeDe Mucer Moffett, Bobby Murcer of the New York Yankees, niece and a collection of great quotes about baseball by an eclectic gathering of speakers, heavily weighted toward the New York Yankees.
68 pages, Paperback
First published April 2, 2012
2 people want to read
About the author
Ron Wallace
5 books20 followers Ron Wallace was born December 17th, 1953 in Durant, Oklahoma. He grew up and still lives there with his wife and college sweetheart, Jane. They have one son, Matthew who is currently attending Southeastern Oklahoma State University where Ron graduated with a B.A. in 1977 and an M.A. in 1983. Wallace taught English, Humanities, American History, and coached baseball in Colbert, Oklahoma (a small public school on the Red River) for thirty years moving away from the writing he had been doing in college. He is of Native American (Choctaw, Cherokee and Osage) and Scots Irish ancestry tracing his roots out of Georgia and Arkansas into Oklahoma.
He began to revive his writing in the 90’s and started attempting some publishing as that decade closed. His work has appeared in Insight, Poetic Voices, Loch Raven Review, Scorched Earth Publishing and Grandmother Earth XIV just to name a few publications. In 2004 and 2005 he won several contests and was awarded a chance to publish a book at emergingpoets.net a website sponsored at that time by Jim Furber of TJMF Publishing. The result was Wallace’s first book, Native Son (American Poems From the Heart of Oklahoma), which became a finalist in the 2007 Oklahoma Book Awards. He saw his work translated and published in the January 2007 issue of the Romanian Literary Magazine, Convorbiri Literare by the noted Romanian poet Vasile Baghiu in December of 2006.
In February of 2007 Wallace appeared as part of the emergingpoets.net Southern Tour with one of the current sponsors of the site Maggie Wilkie and Tina Collins-Eib, Lynn Doiron, Sherry Thrasher and featured poet, Leo Briones. In March of 2007 he appeared as the featured poet at the Abydos Learning International Trainers Conference in Houston. In May he was the featured poet in Scorched Earth Publishing e-zine at www.scorchedearthpublishing.com, and in September he won second place in the 2007 Grandmother Earth National Environmental Poetry Writing Awards.
In 2007 his second book based on his love of American History was released. Smoke and Stone (The Voices of Gettysburg) is a poetic account of the Battle of Gettysburg from different points of view of both real and fictional participants in this turning point of the Civil War.
Wallace's third book of Oklahoma poetry, I Come from Cowboys ... and Indians, was released in October of 2008 and won the 2009 Oklahoma Writer's Federation Best Book of Poetry Award.
His fourth volume of poetry, Oklahoma Cantos, was released in September 2010 and was a finalist in the 2011 Oklahoma Book Awards and won the 2011 Oklahoma Writer's Federation Best Book of Poetry Award.
He began to revive his writing in the 90’s and started attempting some publishing as that decade closed. His work has appeared in Insight, Poetic Voices, Loch Raven Review, Scorched Earth Publishing and Grandmother Earth XIV just to name a few publications. In 2004 and 2005 he won several contests and was awarded a chance to publish a book at emergingpoets.net a website sponsored at that time by Jim Furber of TJMF Publishing. The result was Wallace’s first book, Native Son (American Poems From the Heart of Oklahoma), which became a finalist in the 2007 Oklahoma Book Awards. He saw his work translated and published in the January 2007 issue of the Romanian Literary Magazine, Convorbiri Literare by the noted Romanian poet Vasile Baghiu in December of 2006.
In February of 2007 Wallace appeared as part of the emergingpoets.net Southern Tour with one of the current sponsors of the site Maggie Wilkie and Tina Collins-Eib, Lynn Doiron, Sherry Thrasher and featured poet, Leo Briones. In March of 2007 he appeared as the featured poet at the Abydos Learning International Trainers Conference in Houston. In May he was the featured poet in Scorched Earth Publishing e-zine at www.scorchedearthpublishing.com, and in September he won second place in the 2007 Grandmother Earth National Environmental Poetry Writing Awards.
In 2007 his second book based on his love of American History was released. Smoke and Stone (The Voices of Gettysburg) is a poetic account of the Battle of Gettysburg from different points of view of both real and fictional participants in this turning point of the Civil War.
Wallace's third book of Oklahoma poetry, I Come from Cowboys ... and Indians, was released in October of 2008 and won the 2009 Oklahoma Writer's Federation Best Book of Poetry Award.
His fourth volume of poetry, Oklahoma Cantos, was released in September 2010 and was a finalist in the 2011 Oklahoma Book Awards and won the 2011 Oklahoma Writer's Federation Best Book of Poetry Award.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 13, 2025
I don't think I've ever read a book written with more love ... and reverence.
That's probably all that needs to be said of Wallace's book but I'll continue. You do not need to be a fan of baseball to appreciate these poems. But if you are a fan of baseball, this will be an unparalleled treat! My father could quote statistics and players from his sandlot days in late 1920s until his dying day at 90. He watched every game on television. You could tell his love of the game. The same with Wallace, hence the subtitle: An Oklahoman's Love Affair with Baseball.
Besides all that, Wallace is a damn fine poet.
That's probably all that needs to be said of Wallace's book but I'll continue. You do not need to be a fan of baseball to appreciate these poems. But if you are a fan of baseball, this will be an unparalleled treat! My father could quote statistics and players from his sandlot days in late 1920s until his dying day at 90. He watched every game on television. You could tell his love of the game. The same with Wallace, hence the subtitle: An Oklahoman's Love Affair with Baseball.
Besides all that, Wallace is a damn fine poet.
Displaying 1 of 1 review