Missouri State University Libraries
Robert Wallace Collection
Volume: 17 linear feet, plus unprocessed materials
Dates: 1936-1994
Provenance
The original collection was acquired in April 1985 with a grant from the Missouri State University Foundation. The agreement at that time was that Wallace would donate materials annually. Since his death in 1999, his wife has donated additional materials from Wallace's personal papers and poetry library. The initial donations were processed in 1998 by Jenni Boone, with assistance from Erica Hyink and Katy Rogers. Revisions were made in 2004 by Stephanie Hagenhoff. Later donations are currently unprocessed. Researchers should contact the Archives if they wish to access those materials.
Copyright
This collection may be protected from unauthorized copying by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code). Copyright in all materials produced by Wallace remains vested in the estate of Robert Wallace. Copyrights in other materials remain vested in their respective authors. Permission must be obtained by the respective owner of copyright in order to publish from materials in the Wallace collection.
Access
The collection is unrestricted. Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish material from the collection must be obtained from the Department of Special Collections and Archives. Citations should be as follows: Identification of the item, box and folder number, Robert Wallace Collection [M001], Department of Special Collections and Archives, Missouri State University.
Biographical/Historical Sketch
The Robert Wallace Collection was acquired by Missouri State University in 1985 with a grant from the Missouri State University Foundation. English faculty members Robert Henigan, Michael Burns, and Clark Closser co-wrote the grant proposal and orchestrated the acquisition of the materials. The collection was to be stored in the Special Collections room of the Duane G. Meyer Library on the Missouri State University campus. The agreement was that Wallace would send all papers related to his own poetry and Bits Press, which he owned. He would continue to send papers as they were no longer needed and to send anything published by Bits Press. The agreement also stated that upon his death all remaining manuscripts, as well as the contents of his poetry library, would come to Missouri State University. In the spring of 1985, Robert Wallace came to Missouri State University and gave a reading at an event co-sponsored by the English Department and the Friends of the Libraries.
The collection (except for 2 small boxes of personal letters, which were housed in Michael Burns’ office) was housed in its original containers in the Special Collections room of the library. In 1987, 1989, and 1992 Wallace sent new materials to add to the collection. Usually, these were mailed to Michael Burns, who delivered them to the library. In 1994, Wallace delivered the most recent set of materials to Burns, who kept them in his office.
In 1997, Special Collections Associate Jenni Boone was assigned the project of arranging, describing, and preserving the Robert Wallace Collection. She contacted Mr. Burns and acquired materials from him so that the collection would be complete. She also contacted Wallace, who indicated that he had more materials to deliver.
This collection is comprised of the papers of Robert Wallace and Bits Press, which he owned. Robert Wallace was born in Springfield, Missouri, on January 10, 1932 to Roy Franklin and Tincy Stough Wallace. His father operated a small factory that produced cherry and walnut furniture, which he designed. His mother was a homemaker. Wallace started writing poems around the age of ten, and he enjoyed reading them -- Ogden Nash and Richard Armour were early favorites. Wallace’s father was himself an amateur poet. Wallace grew up in Springfield and graduated from Springfield High (now Central High School). It was in Springfield that he met his first wife, Emily Mitchell (also a Springfield area native). When he was sixteen he became a published poet with the humorous poem “Tee Hee” in The Rotarian magazine. The poem was based on his experiences as a golf caddy.
Wallace went to Harvard in 1949, where he knew John Updike, who remains a friend. In college, Wallace expanded his knowledge and appreciation of poetry and continued to develop his own writing, with models such as John Donne, W. B. Yeats, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and Richard Wilbur. He took a course in writing short story from Wilbur at Harvard. Several of Wallace’s poems were published by The Christian Science Monitor and The Lyric while he was in college. Wallace graduated from Harvard in 1953 with an A. B., summa cum laude, in English.
Wallace received a Fulbright Scholarship to St. Catharine’s College at Cambridge (1953-1955) and was a Woodrow Wilson fellow from 1953-1954. He and Emily married in June of 1954, and Wallace completed his studies at Cambridge in 1955, earning the English Bachelor of Arts degree with honors, which became a Master of Arts in 1959. From 1955 to 1957, he served in the U. S. Army. Wallace’s poems continued to be published here and there, and in 1957 his first book was published by Scribner’s, This Various World and Other Poems. That year he also won the William Rose Benet Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.
Wallace’s teaching career began at Bryn Mawr College, where he was an instructor in English from 1957 to 1961. Wallace enjoyed teaching because it made him feel he was returning the favor of his former teachers. In 1961, he began reading for Educational Testing Service, which he did until 1980. He spent two years at Sweet Briar College (1961-1963), then two at Vassar College (1963-1965) after his marriage to Emily ended. From 1964 until the 1980s he did occasional work as a staff reviewer for the Book of the Month Club.
In 1965, Wallace went to Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland, Ohio, as an associate professor of English, where he stayed. Also in 1965 he published two books: Views from a Ferris Wheel (Dutton), a collection of his poems, and Poems on Poetry (Dutton), an anthology , of which he was co-editor. And he won the Bragdon Prize from Approach magazine. The same year he married Janeen Ann (Jan) Weaver, a painter and philosopher of science. In 1968, another book of poems was published, Ungainly Things (Dutton). In the 1971-1972 academic year, Wallace took a sabbatical leave; for the first semester he lived in Portugal, writing poems and learning the language. For the winter quarter of 1972, Wallace was the George Elliston Visiting Lecturer at the University of Cincinnati. In 1972 he won the Emily Clark Balch Prize from the Virginia Quarterly Review. In 1974, he was promoted to full professor at CWRU.
Wallace’s career as a publisher began in 1974 when he bought a tabletop letterpress. He decided to publish an anthology of poems from the Cleveland area, and began a search for good short poems. The response was so enthusiastic that he (along with friends Frederik N. Smith, Dennis Dooley, Nicholas Ranson, and later Sharon Lillevig and Lee K. Abbott) widened the search to include all of America and the magazine Bits was born. Bits was published semiannually from January of 1975 until January of 1980. Soon after the press was founded, Wallace developed a class that combined writing and printing poems. This provided a unique learning experience for the students and free labor for the press.
In the fall of 1976, about the time Wallace’s second marriage was breaking up, Bits Press obtained a 12” by 18” Chandler and Price press and they set out publishing chapbooks of poems. The first chapbook was Peter Klappert’s Non Sequitur Connor in January of 1977. The other chapbook published that year was Ranson’s Track Made Good. Printing partner Sharon Lillevig, a technical writer and editor, moved in that spring and in November they married.
Usually, the biggest problem that small presses face is trying to market and make enough profit to cover costs. Bits’ solution to this was doing all the printing themselves and just giving copies away. They used funds from their own pockets and also got several small grants early on. But as more poets showed up wanting or needing to be published, it became evident that the press would have to make some money. Bits started publishing fancy, limited, signed editions to sell, such as John Updike’s Five Poems in 1980. Other notable chapbooks of the time include Mary Oliver’s The Night Traveler which was favorably reviewed by Joyce Carol Oates and eventually led to Oliver’s winning a Pulitzer, and Peter Meinke’s The Rat Poems (both in 1978).
These were busy times for Wallace. In 1978, Bits published a book of Wallace’s poems for children, Critters. The next year, his Swimmer in the Rain, a collection of his poems, was published by Carnegie-Mellon University Press. Also in 1979, Wallace became an editor for Bellflower Press, which specialized in scholarly books. In 1980, though Bits magazine was winding down, Bits Press published seven chapbooks and a short journal of fiction, Pieces. In 1981, Wallace remained busy, publishing five chapbooks, one of which was his own, Charlie Joins the Circus, another book for children. In the summer of 1981, Sharon and he separated. Throughout this time, Wallace continued to teach full time at Case Western and supervised the publication of several student works.
In 1982, the first edition of Writing Poems was published by Little, Brown. This is probably the most widely known and circulated of Wallace’s works, a textbook for college poetry writing classes. In May of 1982, Wallace married Christine M. (Tina) Seidler, now an attorney, to whom he was married until his death. Bits Press acquired two new presses that year (Vandercook IV’s). They published three chapbooks that year, and began work on an annual of light verse.
Light Year ‘84 was published in 1983. Light Year became the vehicle through which Wallace pursued his dream of making poetry something which is enjoyed by everyone, like television and novels. He embarked on a personal campaign to revive poetry through light verse and market it to people who don’t like poetry. Remembering the way he began appreciating poetry, though the humorists Ogden Nash and Richard Armour, Wallace wanted to share with the world that poetry can be truly fun to read. In 1984, Wallace’s eighth book was published, Girlfriends and Wives (Carnegie-Mellon University Press), a collection of poems based on his experiences with women.
Light Year kept Wallace busy for several years. His intention was to edit and publish the annual until it had gained a following, then turn it over to a larger publishing house. He began a campaign to find a trade publisher in 1985. By 1985, Wallace had his hands full. He continued to teach full time, edited and published Light Year and other Bits publications, was an editor for Bellflower Press, which he bought and owned until 1988, was a staff reviewer for Book of the Month Club, and was busy with the second edition of Writing Poems. Another project Wallace launched in 1985 was the Blow-In Cooperative Energy Project (BICEP), which was a program for small presses to exchange blow-ins (the small flyers blown into books and magazines after binding) to facilitate cheap advertising for small presses. Bits published three chapbooks in 1985 as well as Light Year ‘86.
In 1986, Bits published a full length book, The Gavin Ewart Show, a selection of poems by the British poet. Wallace arranged a tour for Ewart to read and publicize the book across the U. S. That year Bits also published Light Year ‘87 and Wallace continued to look for a trade publisher to take over the project. The second edition of Writing Poems was published in 1987.
Wallace was by this time very busy trying to run and publicize the small press as well as maintaining many other projects, teaching full time and writing his own poetry. He negotiated a new contract with CWRU to cut back his teaching load to permanent half time, with the same cut in salary. Fortunately Tina had finished law school and begun working full time in a law firm with a good salary.
Sales of Light Year ‘87 lagged behind those of Light Year ‘86, and the dream of turning the project over to a trade publisher began to dim. They decided to make Light Year a biennial, about the same size as the annual, but even more selective in the choice of poems. In 1988, Sometime the Cow Kick Your Head: Light Year ‘88/9 was published. Although Wallace hoped that sales would pick up and the project would continue, he began to look for a trade publisher to put out a “Treasury” of poems from the five published Light Years. Also that year, Gavin Ewart returned to the U. S. for his American Light tour, and Bits published two chapbooks. Wallace’s The Common Summer: New and Selected Poems was published by University Press in 1989.
Also in 1989, Wallace announced to Bits’ sponsors and contributors that Light Year was finished, and Bits began to slow down considerably. His life and career gradually moved in a different direction, away from publishing. Wallace continued to work on Writing Poems and in 1991 the third edition was published. Bits continued to publish a few books or chapbooks each year, including Gerald Costanzo’s The Laps of the Bridesmaids in 1992. In 1993, Bits published what was to be its last (and perhaps most challenging) chapbook, Gary Adamson’s Studios, a collection of woodblock prints carved by Adamson.
A new or renewed interest began to surface in Wallace’s writing: meter. He had several essays published on the subject recently, the most recent of which is at the center of Meter In English: A Critical Engagement edited by David Baker (University of Arkansas Press, 1996). The fourth edition of Writing Poems, with poet Michelle Boisseau as co-author, was published in 1996 by HarperCollins.
Robert Wallace died on April 9th, 1999. At the time of his death, he was working on a fifth edition of Writing Poems, and continuing his study of meter.
Sources
Wallace Collection, Special Collections and Archives, Missouri State University.
Chermak, Natalie. A Light Year for Wallace. Reserve, Winter 1984.
Contemporary Authors, v.13-16, 1st revision. Detroit, MI : Gale Research, 1975, p.831-832.
Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, vol. 10. Detroit, MI : Gale Research, 1983, p. 498.
Something About the Author, vol. 37. Detroit, MI : Gale Research, 1985, p.210
Something About the Author, vol. 47. Detroit, MI : Gale Research, 1987, p.215
Scope and Content
This collection includes thousands of letters from contemporary poets, most notably a significant amount of material from John Updike, several letters from Richard Wilbur, and one from William Carlos Williams. The bulk of the collection is correspondence with Bits contributors. Also included are some of Wallace’s personal letters, again, most notably from John Updike, who was a friend of Wallace’s in college at Harvard.
In addition to correspondence, the collection includes manuscripts of poems, both those written by Wallace and those submitted to or published by Bits. For many of Wallace’s poems, all drafts of the poems are included (even those scribbled on the backs of envelopes). Business papers related to Bits Press are in the collection, and a small amount of ephemera.
Donated with the manuscripts were several books in Wallace’s poetry library. A list of books donated with the collection will be attached to the finding aid. After Wallace's death, his wife donated additional books and papers. Those materials are currently unprocessed.
Because the collection is dynamic and will continue to grow, it is arranged in series which correspond to the year that Wallace sent the group of materials. They are as follows:
Series 1: sent in 1985
Series 2: sent in 1987
Series 3: sent in 1988
Series 4: sent in 1990
Series 5: sent in 1994
Series 0: oversized and audiovisual materials
Within each series the materials arranged in roughly the same order:
1. Bits Press related materials
A. Correspondence
B. Miscellaneous business papers
C. Serial manuscripts and business papers
D. Chapbook manuscripts and business papers
E. Full length book manuscripts and business papers
F. Galley proofs of all Bits publications
2. Personal materials
Order varies; includes manuscripts for books and chapbooks, poems published in magazines and other places, discarded and unpublished manuscripts, personal correspondence, and miscellaneous personal items.
See finding aid for complete file listing.