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Pleasure Tree
Wilson, Robley
75 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1990
4 people want to read
About the author
Robley Wilson
25 books10 followersRobley Wilson (born 1930 in Brunswick, Maine) is an American poet, writer, and editor.
Wilson's first book of poems, 'Kingdoms of the Ordinary', was the 1986 Agnes Lynch Starrett prizewinner, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the fall of 1987; his second, 'A Pleasure Tree', also from Pittsburgh, won the Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize for 1990; his most recent collection, 'Everything Paid For', was published by the University Press of Florida in 1999. A poetry chapbook, 'A Walk Through the Human Heart', appeared in 1996 from Helicon Nine editions.
Wilson taught creative writing at the University of Northern Iowa from 1963 to 1996, and from 1969 to 2000 was editor of the 'North American Review', a university-owned magazine which twice won the National Magazine Award for Fiction administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
He has been visiting writer at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, Beloit College, Northwestern University, Pitzer College, and the University of Central Florida.
Wilson and his wife, fiction writer Susan Hubbard co-edited '100% Pure Florida Fiction', an anthology of Florida short stories written since 1985. The two divide their time between Orlando and Cape Canaveral, Florida and share their lives with five unruly cats: Isis, Olivia, Widget, Winston Churchill, and Max.
Wilson's first book of poems, 'Kingdoms of the Ordinary', was the 1986 Agnes Lynch Starrett prizewinner, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the fall of 1987; his second, 'A Pleasure Tree', also from Pittsburgh, won the Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize for 1990; his most recent collection, 'Everything Paid For', was published by the University Press of Florida in 1999. A poetry chapbook, 'A Walk Through the Human Heart', appeared in 1996 from Helicon Nine editions.
Wilson taught creative writing at the University of Northern Iowa from 1963 to 1996, and from 1969 to 2000 was editor of the 'North American Review', a university-owned magazine which twice won the National Magazine Award for Fiction administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
He has been visiting writer at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, Beloit College, Northwestern University, Pitzer College, and the University of Central Florida.
Wilson and his wife, fiction writer Susan Hubbard co-edited '100% Pure Florida Fiction', an anthology of Florida short stories written since 1985. The two divide their time between Orlando and Cape Canaveral, Florida and share their lives with five unruly cats: Isis, Olivia, Widget, Winston Churchill, and Max.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 16, 2025
Wilson's pleasures are more mild and mundane than intense, even when he's depicting relationships. His terror makes for a more visceral poem:
sunlight whispers the edges
of black leaves and
black fruit and black limbs.
This is the familiar Nature,
but enormous, as in
the disproportions of a bad life.
At nightfall, rummaging
under the cold moon, my first
sense of your shadow comes
like a shaking out of muslin
over the bed
I have hollowed in the meadow.
You are an owl; you are hunting
me. You plummet
out of the black wind over
my hiding place; your eyes
are like yellow shackles;
your broad wings drape the moon.
(From "Transmigrations")
This is Wilson's second book of poetry, though the picture on its back puts him firmly in middle age. He is pedigreed, having published in the right places (including this book, which is part of the Pitt Poetry Series) and having been editor of The North American Review, but I found most of the poetry in this book to be so mild that it barely held my interest. But sometimes that's what we want, right? A book that's a fast, pleasant read that doesn't get our heart beating or ruffle our feathers. This was that sort of book for me.
sunlight whispers the edges
of black leaves and
black fruit and black limbs.
This is the familiar Nature,
but enormous, as in
the disproportions of a bad life.
At nightfall, rummaging
under the cold moon, my first
sense of your shadow comes
like a shaking out of muslin
over the bed
I have hollowed in the meadow.
You are an owl; you are hunting
me. You plummet
out of the black wind over
my hiding place; your eyes
are like yellow shackles;
your broad wings drape the moon.
(From "Transmigrations")
This is Wilson's second book of poetry, though the picture on its back puts him firmly in middle age. He is pedigreed, having published in the right places (including this book, which is part of the Pitt Poetry Series) and having been editor of The North American Review, but I found most of the poetry in this book to be so mild that it barely held my interest. But sometimes that's what we want, right? A book that's a fast, pleasant read that doesn't get our heart beating or ruffle our feathers. This was that sort of book for me.
Displaying 1 of 1 review