On April 17, 2023, the Missouri State University Libraries, in conjunction with the MSU Department of English, kicked off English Week with a panel discussion on Robert Wallace and a book launch reception for the book The Orbit of Meter: Writings on Poems and Prosody by Robert Wallace. This latest publication of the Ozarks Studies Institute, an ongoing initiative of the Missouri State University Libraries, was edited by James S. Baumlin and Anne Marie Baker, and includes a foreword by Christine Wallace.

After a panel presentation led by Christine Wallace, Jim Baumlin, and Tracie Gieselman France, a guided archival tour of the Robert Wallace Collection and reception followed in MSU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives. Guests viewed an exhibit featuring Robert Wallace’s personal items, his correspondence with many well-known poets, his poetry, and selections from his academic and publishing career. An archival tour of additional Wallace Collection materials provided the opportunity to gently turn the pages of publications from Wallace’s Bits Press and inspect letters from other literary figures such as John Updike, Mary Oliver, and William Carlos Williams.

The Orbit of Meter: Writings on Poems and Prosody by Robert Wallace is available for purchase in the Library Administrative Office in Duane G. Meyer Library.

Robert Wallace (1932-1999) forged a distinguished career as a poet, teacher, editor, and prosodist. Printed here for the first time, the monograph Free Verse and the Orbit of Meter mounts a rigorous defense of an original—and still controversial—theory of prosody first outlined in his essay, “Meter in English.” The Ozarks native was a prolific letter writer, whose correspondents included John Updike, Dana Gioia, Donald Hall, Ted Hughes, Linda Pastan, and Mary Oliver. The volume ends with a descriptive inventory of his literary correspondence.