George Wallace was born at Hempstead NY March 22 1949 and was raised by Theodore and Molly Wallace in Huntington LI. His ancestry is a combination of Greek and Russian origins, and his early years were informed by influences from family members from the NY world of art, theatre and haute couture, as well as through local association with R&B musician Kip Carmen, painter Robert Lawn, English emigrant poet Jeff Morgan and Socialist politician Norman Thomas. A trained musician from the age of 4, Wallace studied literature and creative writing at Syracuse University and Pacific University, and Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill. After twenty years of international travel, he returned to the New York metropolitan area to pursue a career as a journalist, popular historian, and poet. Wallace is married to Margaret Wallace, nee Sloggatt, with whom he has a son, Theodore. His three daughters from his first marriage to Barbara Wallace, nee Tepper, include Jennifer Sandum (Feering, Essex UK); Karen Wallace (Huntington NY) and Grace Wallace (Atlanta Ga).
Winner of the CW Post Poetry Prize and the Poetry Kit Best Book award, Wallace is listed by Poets & Writers, is a member of PEN and has served as a member of many advisory boards, including the Walt Whitman Birthplace, Taproots, TeenSpeak, Long Island Poetry Collective, CityArts and the East End Arts Council; and has been a poetry and art critic for Academic Library Book Review, Northport Journal, Opera News, Art Times, West Hills Review, LI Parents & Children, Huntington's Cultural Legacy, Long Island Forum, Portfolio Magazine, LitKicks, Transference, Drunken Boat, Milk Magazine, Big Bridge, NYCBigCityLit, Improper Hamptonian, IncWriters and Newsday.
In 2003, George Wallace was named first Poet Laureate for Suffolk County, NY.
Wallace has studied formally with WD Snodgrass, Donald Justice, David St John and Marvin Bell (BA English, Syracuse, MPH Chapel Hill, MFA candidate Pacific U). He is a specialist in a number of regional literatures, as well as the work of American Beat writing, and has dialogued with numerous individuals in the world of underground Bohemian literature, including Allen Ginsberg, Janine Pommy Vega, Charles Plymell, Carolyn Cassady and Elaine Kaufman.
His conversations and interviews with major figures in contemporary literature and the arts - William Stafford, Samuel Menashe, Robert Bly, Sharon Olds, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Adrienne Rich, Paul Muldoon, Mary de Rachelwitz, David Ignatow, Budd Schulberg, Robert Creeley, Diane Wakoski, Kurt Vonnegut, Molly Peacock, Stanley Twardowicz, Donovan and Peter Max, among others - have appeared widely.
Dozens of publications have used his poetry - including New York Times, Newsday, About.com, GSU Review, Modern Maturity, Cafe Review, Long Shot, Milk Magazine, Confrontation, South Florida Poetry Review, Runes, Cold Mountain Review, and Central California Poetry Journal.
His collaborations with musicians are numerous, and include appearances on stage, performances or CDs with David Amram, Leonard Lehrman, Tony Lamb, Joan Baez, Steve Earle, Levon Helm, Paul Winston, John Sinclair, Martin Loyato and Thurston Moore.
In recent years his rigorous performance schedule in the Metropolitan New York area has included such venues as Carnegie Hall, Algonquin Club, Sidewalk Cafe, C-Note, Cornelia St Cafe, Tribes Gallery and Bowery Poetry Club. He is a regular performer at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac, Howlfest NYC, the Woody Guthrie Festival, Oklahoma, Westhampton Writers Festival; and has appeared at the Kenneth Rexroth Festival in Cleveland; the International Festival of Poetry, Paterson, NJ; Emily Dickinson Reading, NYC; Iliad Marathon Reading, NYC.
Other appearances include Colony Cafe, Woodstock, NY; Gulf of Maine Books, Brunswick Me; Interurban, Norman Ok, Avery Point, New London Ct; Insomniacathon, Louisville Ky; the Hofstra Cultural Center; Eclectic Gallery, Battle Creek Mi.; Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation, Coral Gables, Fla; Beat Museum, San Francisco Ca; and Native Sons of the Golden West, Oroville Ca.
His international appearances include cafes, libraries and bookshops in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Bury St Edmunds, Carlisle, Falmouth and London (UK); the Norfolk Poetry Festival; Ways With Words, Keswick; Wordmarket, Ulverston; Trereife, Penzance (UK); Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea (Wales); Zero28 (Northern Ireland); Shakespeare & Co, Paris (France); and Biblioteca Civica, Parma, Odradek, Rome, Centro Trevi, Bolzano (Italy).
He has conducted workshops for universities and writing groups at CW Post, SCCC, SUNY Stony Brook and the NYS English Teachers Council (NY); Oxnard CC (Ca); the Skiathos Writers Retreat (Greece); Indian King, Camelford (UK); and the University of Cardiff (Wales).
A former Peace Corps Volunteer, USAF Medical Officer and Community Health Organizer, he is a proponent of the concept of the "Citizen Poet," he has created dozens of venues for the promulgation of poetry, and has spoken out as a member of the 'Sixth Estate' on social and political issues, both in praise and criticism of his country.
George Wallace's work has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Korean, Bengali, Russian and Macedonian; he has served as a translator of Roque Dalton, Arturo Onofri and Leon Gontran-Damas, and helped edit the works of Alter Brody.
His work may be found in the collections of the New York State Historic Preservation Office, the California State Archives and the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library; and is archived at Hofstra University's Long Island Studies Institute.
While influenced by a number of aesthetics, Wallace's poetry frequently constitutes a departure from conventional academic poetry of the late 20th century, amalgamating directions suggested by French Cubism and Surrealism with American Beat Prosody, emphasizing invention and the imagination as the wellspring for narrative. His aim is to discover, through wordplay and the imaginative process, the transcendent 'Blakeian' moment of ecstatic and spiritual ignition, and to recount that discovery and elaborate upon it with an 'al fresco,' 'in time' approach that emphasizes a sense of freshness, forward moving narrative energy and improvisational spontaneity.
Contemporary writers who have studied with Wallace in workshops have called his innovative methods for triggering the creative writing process "absolutely mind-boggling." His writing has been praised as being "penetratingly direct" (Hugh Fox, US), "a miracle of conjugation between apparently irreconcilable parts" (Paolo Ruffilli, It), "Blakeian" (John Hall, UK) and "quite simply beautiful" (Neeli Cherkovski, US).
His performance has been called "spellbinding" (David Amram, US); "cool and musical" (Donovan, Scotland); and "reminiscent of e.e. cummings' reading voice - the best I know of" (Mary de Rachewiltz, It).
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