C.D. Wright

Spanning four decades of writing, The Essential C. D. Wright carries the reverence and wisecracking lyricism of poems that reshaped American poetry. The Essential C. D. Wright, with a moving introduction by Forrest Gander, gathers rare selections from across her entire oeuvre--from the first book, Room Rented by a Single Woman (1978), through the final collection, Shall Cross, which was in production at the time of her unexpected death in 2016. Tracing a writing life that spans more than four decades, this essential collection illuminates works that remain empowered by an unrelenting independence, a reverence for mentors, and wry wisecracking lyricism. Wright introduced a contemporary audience to the promise and power of docupoetics, while pushing the musical boundaries of vernacular speech and reshaping American poetry. Formally restless and energetic, The Essential C. D. Wright stands as a staple in the larger poetic landscape.

International Winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize 2009C. D. Wright's thirteenth collection, Rising, Falling, Hovering, reminds us what poetry is for. This is poetry as white phosphorus, written with merciless love and depthless anger. --from the Griffin Prize judges' citationWright is a resolutely experimental poet, funny and intemperate, and the poems in her latest volume manage an unusual alchemy--they have a raw, unfinished quality that never feels provisional. --The New YorkerWright belongs to a school of exactly one. --New York Times Book ReviewThese poems succeed at storytelling and at painting realistic scenes. Wright emerges a modern woman coping with relationships in a world full of violence and wars. Recommended for larger public libraries and all academic collections. --Library Journal"Wright braids some of her most personal and intimate poetry to date with an extended meditation on the consequences of America's contemporary stance toward other countries."--Publishers Weekly, starred review"C. D. Wright has an uncanny and characteristic reverence for both the vernacular and the esoteric, which leads to riveting and rare depictions of American culture. . . . It's been a while since I read an entire book of poetry in rapture. After finishing Rising, Falling, Hovering, I was reminded of why I love the medium, what it can do."--The Stranger (Seattle)Deeply personal and politically ferocious, Rising, Falling, Hovering addresses the commonly felt crises of our times--from illegal immigration and the specific consequences of empire-building to the challenges of parenting and the honesty required of human relationships. About the other night I know you are sorry I am sorry too We were tired Meand my open-shut-case mouth You and your clockwork disciplines And I know it istoo far to go But we can't leave it to the forces to rub out the color of the worldC. D. Wright is the author of a dozen collections of poetry and prose. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Wright is a professor of English at Brown University and lives outside Providence, Rhode Island.

For a long while now, C. D. Wright has been writing some of the greatest poetry-cum-prose you can find in American literature. One Big Self does to the contemporary prison-industrial complex what James Agee did to poverty -- it reacts passionately and lyrically (and idiosyncratically) to a sociopolitical abomination. This book, while angry and sorrowful and bewildered, has humor, constant levity and candor, and countless moments of incredible beauty. --Dave Eggers, The New York Times Book Review"Wright has found a way to wed fragments of an iconic America to a luminously strange idiom, eerie as a tin whistle, which she uses to evoke the haunted quality of our carnal existence."--The New YorkerInspired by numerous visits inside Louisiana state prisons--where MacArthur Fellow C. D. Wright served as a "factotum" for a portrait photographer--One Big Self bears witness to incarcerated men and women and speaks to the psychic toll of protracted time passed in constricted space. It is a riveting mosaic of distinct voices, epistolary pieces, elements from a moralistic board game, road signage, prison data, inmate correspondence, and "counts" of things--from baby's teeth to chigger bites: Count your folding money Count the times you said you wouldn't go back Count your debts Count the roaches when the light comes on Count your kids after the housefire One Big Self--originally published as a large-format limited edition that featured photographs and text--was selected by The New York Times and The Village Voice as a notable book of the year. This edition features the poem exclusively. C. D. Wright is the author of ten books of poetry, including several collaborations with photographer Deborah Luster. She is a professor at Brown University.

C. D. Wright takes her title from a line of legal defense, peculiar to Texas courts, in which it is held that if a man kills before having had time "to cool" after receiving an injury or an insult he is not guilty of murder. Cooling Time is a new type of book, an unruly vigil that is an interconnected memoir-poem-essay about contemporary American poetry. Ever focused on possibilities, Wright demonstrates that "the search for models becomes a search for alternatives," and thereby defines the terms by which poets can chart their own course. These are some of the things I have touched in my life that are forbidden: paintings behind velvet ropes, electric fencing, a vault in an office, gun in a drawer, my brother's folding money, the poet's anus, the black holes in his heart--where his life went out of him. Tell me, what is the long stretch of road for if not to sort out the reasons why we are here and why we do what we do, from why we are not in the other lane doing what others do. Poetry is like food remarked one of my first teachers, freeing me to dislike Rocky Mountain Oysters and Robert Lowell. The menu is vast, the list of things I don't want in my mouth relatively short. C. D. Wright, author of nine books of poetry, teaches at Brown University. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with poet Forrest Gander.

Now in paperback, Steal Away presents C. D. Wright's best lyrics, narratives, prose poems, and odes with new "retablos" and a bracing vigil on incarceration. Long admired as a fearless poet writing authentically erotic verse, Wright--with her Southern accent and cinematic eye--couples strangeness with uncanny accuracy to create poems that "offer a once-and-for-all thing, opaque and revelatory, ceaselessly burning."from "Our Dust"You didn't know my weariness, error, incapacity, I was the poetof shadow work and towns with quarter-inchphone books, of failedroadside zoos. The poet of yard eggs andsharpening shops, jobs at the weapons plant and the Maybellinefactory on the penitentiary road." Wright has found a way to wed fragments of an iconic America to a luminously strange idiom, eerie as a tin whistle."--The New Yorker"Wright shrinks back from nothing."--Voice Literary Supplement"C. D. Wright is a devastating visionary. She writes in light. She sets language on fire."--American LettersC. D. Wright has published nine collections of poetry and earned many awards, including the Lannan Literary Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She teaches at Brown University and in 1994 was named State Poet of Rhode Island. With her husband, Forrest Gander, she edits Lost Roads Publishers.

C. D. Wright is a fearless poet long admired for her authentically erotic verse. With a Southern accent and cinematic eye she couples strangeness with uncanny accuracy, bundling fragments of stories to create poems that are, as she describes them, "succinct novels." Wright's poems are simultaneously modern and deeply primal; they are pheromonal. Gathering work from her eight previous volumes, Steal Away weaves new work with Wright's best lyrics, narratives, prose poems, and odes. You didn't know my weariness, error, incapacity, I was the poet of shadow work and towns with quarter-inch phone books, of failed roadside zoos. The poet of yard eggs and sharpening shops, jobs at the weapons plant and the Maybelline factory on the penitentiary road. --from "Our Dust""Wright shrinks back from nothing."--Voice Literary Supplement"Wright is one of America's oddest, best, and most appealing poets."--Publishers Weekly"C. D. Wright's best new poems are defiant, erotic, and disjunctive, easy to be moved by, hard to assemble, and like nothing else being made today."--Boston PhoenixC. D. Wright was born and raised in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. She has published nine collections of poetry, served as State Poet of Rhode Island, and earned many awards, including a Lannan Literary Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She teaches at Brown University and is presently at work on a poetry-and-photographic documentary of Louisiana prisoners. Also Available by C. D. Wright Deepstep Come Shining TP $14.00, 1-55659-092-X - CUSA TC $22.00, 1-55659-093-8 - CUSA