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. It also presents readers with the very first look at a remarkable selection of previously uncollected poems. Tracing a writing life that spans more than four decades, this book illuminates works that remain empowered by an unrelenting independence, a wry and utterly original lyricism. It is a powerful entry in Copper Canyon’s revered Essential series, which has provided reader-friendly editions of some of contemporary poetry’s most important voices. C.D. 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.
ISBN: 9781556597190
Format: Paperback
“This comprehensive and riveting volume […] serves both the ardent fan and the newcomer to [Wright’s] work. Wright’s commitment to wonder and witness runs throughout like an iron wire, revealing a logic made newly legible by this collection […] Attuned especially to the poor and disenfranchised, the victims of racialized violence, and the incarcerated, these poems strive to represent people ‘as they elect to be seen, in their larger selves.’ It’s a thrilling assemblage of Wright’s unforgettable writings.”—Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
“The best solution to date to the problem of Wright’s genius and abundance.”—Christopher Spaide, Lit Hub
“Featuring cinematic jump cuts and jazzlike improvisations, moments of microscopic precision giving way to metaphysical abstraction, Wright’s poetry sparks between a tangible, earthbound reality and something harder to pin down, caught between ‘the human dimension’ of our lived experience and the ‘existential drift’ of memory and imagination (‘End Thoughts’). At times, Wright’s poetry seems almost photographic in its clarity, presenting intimate snapshots of a world of people and their treasured things, setting words down on the white space of the paper like objects on a tablecloth . . . Like all photography, Wright’s work asserts a quality of preservation, holding something back, as though a trace of the figure or object in question were suspended in the poem itself, ‘not the words,’ exactly, but ‘the substance’ (‘Light Bulb Poem’).”—Rowland Bagnall, Los Angeles Review of Books
“The Essential C. D. Wright brings together poems selected from across the author’s many books as well as unpublished poems and drafts, including lovely hauntings like ‘The great nothing was there. Always. / Listen, Trespasser.’ In the introduction, Forrest Gander writes of living together for over three decades, ‘she was not for one minute uninteresting. Or uninterested.’ Wright’s desirous, interested, wild eye is more present here than in any other single volume.”—Poetry Northwest
“Whether you’ve followed the work of C.D. Wright for years or are encountering it for the first time, this condensation of decades is rich, like that 94% dark chocolate you allow yourself only on special occasions. The Essential C.D. Wright, selected and edited by her partner, Forrest Gander, and editor, Michael Wiegers, provides the breadth of a single poet’s career all under one cover, leaving it up to the reader when to take breaks to breathe. Savoring is necessary.”—Stan Galloway, Bear Review