Playing in Overtime

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>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 </span></p><p></p>