Charles Wright (1) (1935–)

Wright's poems are the kind which you might read through once, fairly easily, and then read through again for another level of meaning. In this collection, the ones I got the most out of were the longer sequences and those more focused on images than on story-telling, which isn't necessarily the norm for me. Here, though, the sequences progressed in such a way as to feel like slowly blooming flowers and films, and I adored them, whereas many images were offered with such simple flavor that I couldn't help but enjoy them and re-read immediately.

Wright will probably never be one of my favorite poets, but this little book is certainly my favorite collection from him so far, and I think I'll probably return to a number of the poems here.… (mere)

Desire discriminates and language discriminates:
They form no part of the essence of things:
each word
Is a failure, each object
We name and place
leads us another step away from the light.

Loss is its own gain.
Its secret is emptiness.
Our images lie in the flat pools of their dark selves
Like bodies of water the tide moves.
They move as the tide moves.
Its secret is emptiness.

A great collection of work by an underrated poet. In Wright's poetry, Paul Celan, Du Fu, and Dante meet and discuss the Appalachians. This kaleidoscopic conversation is nowhere more evident than the selections from Chickamauga—which, for me, are the strongest.… (mere)