Playing in Overtime

Barry Wallenstein's previous poetry collection, It's About Time, [1982, NYQ Books] had as its dominant theme time passing and mortality, which is appropriate for a recent octogenarian. Now, a few years later, that theme persists, but he's managed to sidestep it by developing character sketches and poems that address current events and global concerns. The titles of the four sections indicate the separate topics or ideas contained in the poetry: "Persons of Interest," the character sketches, is followed by "Intimacy," love poems that include family, "The Daily News," poems about the outside world and our current wars, environment, and finally "Playing in Overtime," a return to theand the swift passage of time. Even though these sections maintain their own discrete topics, elements of each inform the work as a whole. theme of aging