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Fairfield man publishes second volume of poems
FAIRFIELD — A Fairfield man has published his second volume of poems, this one dealing with the grief he’s felt over the loss of his wife and son.
Dr. Roland Peaslee is perhaps best known to Fairfield residents for his 40 years of practice at the Fairfield Eye and Vision Center as an optometrist and eye doctor, which he retired from in 1999. Peaslee, 90, has been a member of the Fairfield Lions Club for 63 years, and remains active in the First Lutheran Church, serving on its property committee.
What Fairfield residents might not know about Peaslee is that he’s also an avid poet, and that he’s written nearly 500 poems in his life, and to this day, is adding to the total. Earlier this year, Peaslee published the second volume of his collection of poems called “Love Poems.” The first volume, subtitled “A lifetime of poems for the love of my life,” was published in 2019. The year prior, Peaslee’s wife of 59 years, Bonnie, passed away.
The week before Bonnie died, she told her husband that she had saved all the poems he had written to her and to their children, Alan, Brian, Jay and Dian. Peaslee said he had no idea she was saving them.
The couple’s nephew, Reid Tracy, is the CEO of Hay House Publishing. When Tracy learned that Bonnie had saved all his poems, he encouraged Roland to publish them as a book.
“It was intended to be for the family,” Peaslee said. “The books are available on Amazon, and they do sell, but I didn’t produce it for moneymaking. It’s a combination of my tribute to my wife, and Reid’s generosity in publishing them.”
The first volume covers several decades of poems Peaslee wrote, often to commemorate a birthday, anniversary or special occasion.
“I enjoy the challenge of making things rhyme,” Peaslee said. “I see something I feel has a rhyme that could be associated with it. I don’t write free verse. These are all metered and rhymed.”
The second volume, published in April of this year, covers the years 2019-2022 and reflects Peaslee’s attempt to navigate the void left by the death of his wife, as well as the untimely death of their son, Brian, who died just six months after Bonnie at age 54.
According to the book’s summary on Amazon, the second volume invites readers to “Journey through the COVID-19 pandemic years and a new normal with a widower and octogenarian who remains upbeat amidst such isolating and challenging times.”
Peaslee said the poems he included in his second volume are his “work of grief.”
“You choose either to build a new garage, go on a big long vacation to get away, or else you sit down and write your own biography,” he said. “I chose to write poems of our treasured memories. We traveled so much. We’ve been to every state and every province in Canada.”
Among Peaslee’s body of work are poems about meeting Bonnie. He said the couple had a “slow start,” and that their first encounter was at an army hospital cafeteria arranged by friends in 1958. Bonnie was studying to become a dietitian, and Peaslee remarked that he knew some dietitians who didn’t even know how to cook.
“That probably wasn’t an appropriate remark,” Peaslee said in hindsight. “When I called her that evening, she hung up on me.”
Peaslee learned from Bonnie’s friend that Bonnie loved Mounds bars, so he bought the biggest Mounds bar he could find.
“I called her back and said, ‘Don’t hang up, I have a Mounds bar,’” Peaslee said.
Bonnie and Roland had three dates before he was sent to the Korean Peninsula for a 13-month tour of duty in a combat zone. Though this was five years after the start of the cease fire between North and South Korea, Peaslee said there were still border skirmishes resulting in deaths and injuries. After Peaslee’s tour of duty, the couple moved to Fairfield in 1960 and raised their family there.
In addition to the numerous poems he penned about his family and their time together, Peaslee also likes to write humorous compositions, jotting down the ironies and absurdities of daily life.
“I have one about why people fill their garage with junk while putting their car out on the driveway,” he said.
Peaslee has written 60 poems since the second volume was published, so a third volume of poems is not out of the question. Interested readers can find his two volumes for purchase on Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s website. It’s available as a paperback and as an e-book.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
