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Bye-and-Bye: Selected Late Poems
Over the course of nineteen collections of poems, Charles Wright has built "one of the truly distinctive bodies of poetry created in the second half of the twentieth century" (David Young, Contemporary Poets ). Bye-and-Bye , which brings together selections from Wright's more recent work―including the entirety of Littlefoot , Wright's moving, book-length meditation on mortality―showcases the themes and images that have defined his mature the true affinity between writer and subject, human and nature; the tenuous relationship between description and actuality; and the search for a truth that transcends change and death.
Bye-and-Bye is a wonderful introduction to the late work of one of America's finest and best-loved poets.
Bye-and-Bye is a wonderful introduction to the late work of one of America's finest and best-loved poets.
- GenresPoetry
384 pages, Hardcover
First published April 12, 2011
17 people are currently reading
92 people want to read
About the author
Charles Wright
238 books109 followersCharles Wright is an American poet. He shared the National Book Award in 1983 for Country Music: Selected Early Poems and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for Black Zodiac.
From 2014 to 2015, he served as the 20th Poet Laureate of the United States. Charles Wright is often ranked as one of the best American poets of his generation. He attended Davidson College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; he also served four years in the U.S. Army, and it was while stationed in Italy that Wright began to read and write poetry. He is the author of over 20 books of poetry.
Charles Wright is a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets and the Souder Family Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. His many collections of poetry and numerous awards—including the Pulitzer Prize, the Griffin International Poetry Prize, and a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize—have proven that he is, as Jay Parini once said, “among the best poets” of his generation. Yet Wright remains stoic about such achievements: it is not the poet, but the poems, as he concluded to Genoways. “One wants one’s work to be paid attention to, but I hate personal attention. I just want everyone to read the poems. I want my poetry to get all the attention in the world, but I want to be the anonymous author.”
From 2014 to 2015, he served as the 20th Poet Laureate of the United States. Charles Wright is often ranked as one of the best American poets of his generation. He attended Davidson College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; he also served four years in the U.S. Army, and it was while stationed in Italy that Wright began to read and write poetry. He is the author of over 20 books of poetry.
Charles Wright is a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets and the Souder Family Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. His many collections of poetry and numerous awards—including the Pulitzer Prize, the Griffin International Poetry Prize, and a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize—have proven that he is, as Jay Parini once said, “among the best poets” of his generation. Yet Wright remains stoic about such achievements: it is not the poet, but the poems, as he concluded to Genoways. “One wants one’s work to be paid attention to, but I hate personal attention. I just want everyone to read the poems. I want my poetry to get all the attention in the world, but I want to be the anonymous author.”
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 15, 2018
I used to imagine that word-sway and word-thunder
Would silence the Silence and all that,
That words were the Word,
That language could lead us inexplicably to grace,
As though it were geographical.
I used to think these things when I was young.
I still do.
I didn't care for the early sections, the winnowed caprice of Black Zodiac wasn't as present, filtered. The author's arc of memory and nature's symphony kept my attention. There was an ultimate reward.
A vision of Kafka, one who is offered soft cheese and bread and then leaves as a spring sunbeam is an arresting image. The Carter Family as memento mori. Dr. Burton would be content. Each image offers an idea or an association. Wright measures mortality in a veritable book of snow. Each step ephemeral.
Would silence the Silence and all that,
That words were the Word,
That language could lead us inexplicably to grace,
As though it were geographical.
I used to think these things when I was young.
I still do.
I didn't care for the early sections, the winnowed caprice of Black Zodiac wasn't as present, filtered. The author's arc of memory and nature's symphony kept my attention. There was an ultimate reward.
A vision of Kafka, one who is offered soft cheese and bread and then leaves as a spring sunbeam is an arresting image. The Carter Family as memento mori. Dr. Burton would be content. Each image offers an idea or an association. Wright measures mortality in a veritable book of snow. Each step ephemeral.
November 11, 2018
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. SOMEONE
Reflected radiance, moon envy, we hang outside
Ourselves like bats,
clothed in our flash dreams.
Sunset soaks down to the last leaves of the autumn trees.
Under our heads, the world is a long drop and an ache.
Above us, the sky forks,
great road to the left, great road to the right.
Someone will come and walk on his hands
through the dry grass to the altar.
Someone will take the wafer, someone will take the wine
And walk back through the gravestones.
Succor us, someone,
Let us drink from your mouth and let us eat from your tongue.
Eternal penny, counterfeit truth, score us and pay us off.
Buried November, read us our rites.
Salvation, worry our sins.
Awake, we all share the same world,
asleep, we’re each in our own.
Lay me down, Lord, let me sleep.
JANUARY II
A cold draft blows steadily from a crack in the window jamb.
It’s good for the soul.
For some reason, I think of monuments in the high desert,
and what dissembles them.
We’re all born with a one-way ticket, of course,
Thus do we take our deaths up on our shoulders and walk and walk,
Trying to get back.
We’d like to move as the water moves.
We’d like to cover the earth
the way the wind covers the earth.
We’d like to burn our way there, like fire.
It’s not in the cards.
Uncertainty harbors us like winter mist—
the further we go, the deeper it gets.
Sundown now, and wind from the northwest.
The month is abandoned.
Volvos go wandering to and fro
Like lost polar bears. The landscape is simple and brown.
The future’s behind us, panting, lolling its black tongue.
NO DIRECTION HOME
After a certain age, there’s no one left to turn to.
You’ve got to find Eurydice on your own,
you’ve got
To find the small crack
between here and everywhere else all by yourself.
How could it be otherwise?
Everyone’s gone away, the houses are all empty,
And overcast starts to fill the sky like soiled insulation.
Reflected radiance, moon envy, we hang outside
Ourselves like bats,
clothed in our flash dreams.
Sunset soaks down to the last leaves of the autumn trees.
Under our heads, the world is a long drop and an ache.
Above us, the sky forks,
great road to the left, great road to the right.
Someone will come and walk on his hands
through the dry grass to the altar.
Someone will take the wafer, someone will take the wine
And walk back through the gravestones.
Succor us, someone,
Let us drink from your mouth and let us eat from your tongue.
Eternal penny, counterfeit truth, score us and pay us off.
Buried November, read us our rites.
Salvation, worry our sins.
Awake, we all share the same world,
asleep, we’re each in our own.
Lay me down, Lord, let me sleep.
JANUARY II
A cold draft blows steadily from a crack in the window jamb.
It’s good for the soul.
For some reason, I think of monuments in the high desert,
and what dissembles them.
We’re all born with a one-way ticket, of course,
Thus do we take our deaths up on our shoulders and walk and walk,
Trying to get back.
We’d like to move as the water moves.
We’d like to cover the earth
the way the wind covers the earth.
We’d like to burn our way there, like fire.
It’s not in the cards.
Uncertainty harbors us like winter mist—
the further we go, the deeper it gets.
Sundown now, and wind from the northwest.
The month is abandoned.
Volvos go wandering to and fro
Like lost polar bears. The landscape is simple and brown.
The future’s behind us, panting, lolling its black tongue.
NO DIRECTION HOME
After a certain age, there’s no one left to turn to.
You’ve got to find Eurydice on your own,
you’ve got
To find the small crack
between here and everywhere else all by yourself.
How could it be otherwise?
Everyone’s gone away, the houses are all empty,
And overcast starts to fill the sky like soiled insulation.
December 15, 2011
I've only recently come to the poetry of Charles Wright. Less than 2 years ago. He had already produced a large body of work. Interested in it all, I knew I wanted to read as much as I could. So this selection of poems from his 5 most recent books is one I acquired eagerly and hurried to begin reading.
I've commented before that I like the meditative qualities of Wright's poetry. The long lines create long thoughts and large stanzic blocks in which he considers what he observes in the world. Much of what he writes about is the emotion created by what he experiences and takes in as sensation. Memory is one of his great themes. Memory inspires some of the most beautiful images and the most emotional tenor found here. Meditation and memory go hand in hand. They become catalytic agents which spark each other into making nimbly reflective poetry.
For me Wright's poetry possesses an Oriental sensibility and grace. Though Appalachia is his home and overriding subject his recording of nature rings as sharply for the reader as a garden bell. To read what he has to say about the seasons is to sense how he stands to let them wheel around him, noting textures of air, arousals of April streaming into the decline of December. He touches large themes: love, time, memory, death. All of his volume called Littlefoot, which concerns mortality, is here. In fact, practically the whole of the human experience with those themes is kernelized in Bye-and-Bye. He writes in one poem, "Emptiness happens." But it doesn't happen here. This is a collage of poems made of practically everything and arranged into a text filled with music and life, the lives of us all.
I've commented before that I like the meditative qualities of Wright's poetry. The long lines create long thoughts and large stanzic blocks in which he considers what he observes in the world. Much of what he writes about is the emotion created by what he experiences and takes in as sensation. Memory is one of his great themes. Memory inspires some of the most beautiful images and the most emotional tenor found here. Meditation and memory go hand in hand. They become catalytic agents which spark each other into making nimbly reflective poetry.
For me Wright's poetry possesses an Oriental sensibility and grace. Though Appalachia is his home and overriding subject his recording of nature rings as sharply for the reader as a garden bell. To read what he has to say about the seasons is to sense how he stands to let them wheel around him, noting textures of air, arousals of April streaming into the decline of December. He touches large themes: love, time, memory, death. All of his volume called Littlefoot, which concerns mortality, is here. In fact, practically the whole of the human experience with those themes is kernelized in Bye-and-Bye. He writes in one poem, "Emptiness happens." But it doesn't happen here. This is a collage of poems made of practically everything and arranged into a text filled with music and life, the lives of us all.
March 7, 2017
"There is so much that clings to us, and wants to keep warm."
(from "Thinking of Wallace Stevens at the Beginning of Spring")
Breathtaking, marvelous poems. I have always enjoyed his work, and this was a far-ranging and enjoyable collection of his later work. It is a pleasure to merely live in the same town as Charles Wright, to know that a poet of this caliber lives in my county.
Favorite Poems
“Looking Around III”
“Charlottesville Nocturne”
“Nostalgia”
“Why, It’s as Pretty as a Picture”
“Nostalgia III”
“Appalachian Farewell”
“Last Supper”
“The Narrow Road to the Distant City”
“Hawksbane”
“The Ghost of Walter Benjamin Walks at Midnight”
“Our Days Are Political, But Birds Are Something Else”
“Morning Occurrence at Xanadu”
Swallows are flying grief-circles over their featherless young,
Night-dropped and dead on the wooden steps.
The aspen leaves have turned gray,
slapped by the hard, west wind.
Someone who knows how little he knows
Is like the man who comes to a clearing in the forest,
and sees the light spikes,
And suddenly sense how happy his life has been.
(from "Thinking of Wallace Stevens at the Beginning of Spring")
Breathtaking, marvelous poems. I have always enjoyed his work, and this was a far-ranging and enjoyable collection of his later work. It is a pleasure to merely live in the same town as Charles Wright, to know that a poet of this caliber lives in my county.
Favorite Poems
“Looking Around III”
“Charlottesville Nocturne”
“Nostalgia”
“Why, It’s as Pretty as a Picture”
“Nostalgia III”
“Appalachian Farewell”
“Last Supper”
“The Narrow Road to the Distant City”
“Hawksbane”
“The Ghost of Walter Benjamin Walks at Midnight”
“Our Days Are Political, But Birds Are Something Else”
“Morning Occurrence at Xanadu”
Swallows are flying grief-circles over their featherless young,
Night-dropped and dead on the wooden steps.
The aspen leaves have turned gray,
slapped by the hard, west wind.
Someone who knows how little he knows
Is like the man who comes to a clearing in the forest,
and sees the light spikes,
And suddenly sense how happy his life has been.
December 23, 2014
It's so interesting to read this collection of Wright's late poems, culled from his five later books. One thing is very clear: the man is obsessed with clouds. I didn't actually count, but the word "cloud" or "clouds" must appear well over a hundred times in this book. And it turns out that a cloud is the perfect metaphor for the poems themselves: they are fleeting, multi-forming...you see a pattern come into shape and then it dissipates. It's like being inside his mind...following his various obsessions with morality, memory, nature and place.
He writes:
I used to think the power of words was inexhaustible,
That how we said the world
was how it was, and how it would be.
I used to imagine that word-sway and word-thunder
Would silence the Silence and all that,
That words were the Word,
That language could lead us inexplicably to grace,
As though it were geographical.
I used to think these things when I was young.
I still do.
He writes:
I used to think the power of words was inexhaustible,
That how we said the world
was how it was, and how it would be.
I used to imagine that word-sway and word-thunder
Would silence the Silence and all that,
That words were the Word,
That language could lead us inexplicably to grace,
As though it were geographical.
I used to think these things when I was young.
I still do.
December 22, 2019
**4.5 stars**
This lovely selection of late poems by Charles Wright, which includes poems from collections published between 2002-2009, is beautifully written, deeply moving, and thought provoking. Wright focuses his attention in these poems on the intersections between the beauty of the natural world, aging/death, human memory, and the limitations of language. Below are two short poems from Sestets that I feel are representative of the collection's general subject matter and overall tone. Wright is an artful poet and I highly recommend his work for the careful reader who likes to linger over poetry.
Tomorrow
The metaphysics of the quotidian was what he was after:
A little dew on the sunrise grass,
A drop of blood in the evening trees,
a drop of fire.
If you don't shine you are darkness.
The future is merciless,
everyone's name inscribed
On the flyleaf of the Book of Snow.
Sundown Blues
There are some things that can't be conveyed--
description, for instance,
The sundown light on that dog-hair lodgepole pine
and the dead branches of spruce trees.
They hold its brilliance close against them
For a tick or two
before it chameleons away.
No one is able to describe this gold to bronze to charcoal, no one.
So move along, boy, just move along.
This lovely selection of late poems by Charles Wright, which includes poems from collections published between 2002-2009, is beautifully written, deeply moving, and thought provoking. Wright focuses his attention in these poems on the intersections between the beauty of the natural world, aging/death, human memory, and the limitations of language. Below are two short poems from Sestets that I feel are representative of the collection's general subject matter and overall tone. Wright is an artful poet and I highly recommend his work for the careful reader who likes to linger over poetry.
Tomorrow
The metaphysics of the quotidian was what he was after:
A little dew on the sunrise grass,
A drop of blood in the evening trees,
a drop of fire.
If you don't shine you are darkness.
The future is merciless,
everyone's name inscribed
On the flyleaf of the Book of Snow.
Sundown Blues
There are some things that can't be conveyed--
description, for instance,
The sundown light on that dog-hair lodgepole pine
and the dead branches of spruce trees.
They hold its brilliance close against them
For a tick or two
before it chameleons away.
No one is able to describe this gold to bronze to charcoal, no one.
So move along, boy, just move along.
February 14, 2020
Enjoyable poetry
I enjoyed the various poems found in this collection. The author did a great job of weaving the beauty of human existence with the wonders of nature with an exquisite sense of melancholy
I enjoyed the various poems found in this collection. The author did a great job of weaving the beauty of human existence with the wonders of nature with an exquisite sense of melancholy
Read
November 19, 2019“Each of us has his day when the wind stops, and the clouds stop, / When everything grinds down and grains out. / Let mine be a Tuesday, he thought. / Let mine be always day-after-tomorrow.”
Read
July 8, 2024Really 4 volumes in 1.
For me, just slightly uneven, but when Wright is on, his poetry is simply spectacular.
For me, just slightly uneven, but when Wright is on, his poetry is simply spectacular.
November 6, 2012
Charles Wrights poems are wonderful, I am at home in his landscapes. He brings a bit of ancient Chinese poetry to his language. Had to buy the book.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews