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Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems
The culmination of the cycle that won Wright the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award
Time will append us like suit coats left out overnight
On a deck chair, loose change dead weight in the right pocket,
Silk handkerchief limp with dew,
sleeves in a slow dance with the wind.
And love will kill us--
Love, and the winds from under the earth
that grind us to grain-out.
--from "Still Life with Spring and Time to Burn"
When Charles Wright published Appalachia in 1998, it marked the completion of a nine-volume project, of which James Longenbach wrote in the Boston Review , "Charles Wright's trilogy of trilogies--call it 'The Appalachian Book of the Dead'--is sure to be counted among the great long poems of the century."
The first two of those trilogies were collected in Country Music (1982) and The World of the Ten Thousand Things (1990). Here Wright adds to his third trilogy ( Chickamauga [1995], Black Zodiac [1997], and Appalachia [1998]) a section of new poems that suggest new directions in the work of this sensuous, spirit-haunted poet.
Time will append us like suit coats left out overnight
On a deck chair, loose change dead weight in the right pocket,
Silk handkerchief limp with dew,
sleeves in a slow dance with the wind.
And love will kill us--
Love, and the winds from under the earth
that grind us to grain-out.
--from "Still Life with Spring and Time to Burn"
When Charles Wright published Appalachia in 1998, it marked the completion of a nine-volume project, of which James Longenbach wrote in the Boston Review , "Charles Wright's trilogy of trilogies--call it 'The Appalachian Book of the Dead'--is sure to be counted among the great long poems of the century."
The first two of those trilogies were collected in Country Music (1982) and The World of the Ten Thousand Things (1990). Here Wright adds to his third trilogy ( Chickamauga [1995], Black Zodiac [1997], and Appalachia [1998]) a section of new poems that suggest new directions in the work of this sensuous, spirit-haunted poet.
- GenresPoetry
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
13 people are currently reading
179 people want to read
About the author
Charles Wright
246 books110 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 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 9, 2025
A stunning collection of poetry. I loved Wrights poetry and his connection to nature and how he related it to his skepticism of religion. I’m not sure if I believe in God, but if he exists, nature is his way of speaking to me, and Wrights writing proves that. The way Buddhism, Christianity, nature, and Wrights Southern roots intertwine in this is really cool and beautiful. My first collection of his and definitely not my last. I really loved many of the poems in here. My personal favorite was “Stray paragraphs in February, Year of the Rat.”
August 31, 2009
One of my favorite poets of all time. This book was gorgeous and brilliant in many places, but a surprising number of clunkers so that I wish I could give it a 4.5. A tree undergoing chemotherapy, for instance, was an image that caused me to cringe. Most of the clunkers had to do with ascribing human illnesses and/or prescriptions to natural phenomena.
ON the other hand, Charles Wright is a master almost all of the time.
ON the other hand, Charles Wright is a master almost all of the time.
March 12, 2015
Not a book to whizz through. Much of this is sublime, as Charles Wright is sublime. I love his poetry. At times, though, some of it started to seem like itself, all fine and true to one's art, but occasionally a slog for the reader.
January 17, 2019
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.
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.
January 16, 2015
This is the first Charles Wright collection I've read. I appreciated the natural imagery, the interesting mix of backyard and international vantage points, the reaction pieces to his reading material. There were many "moments" as I read, and a few full poems that really spoke to me. There were also times when I thought "there's that arborvitae, again...."
What appeals to me most is the recurrent theme of internal spiritual/religious struggle and Wright's facility in connecting the natural with the supernatural in a realistic, non-fantastical way--from the recurrent references to the titular "Blue" that ties the Heavens with the Earth (e.g., Blue Ridge Mountains) to the constant use of images of winter-barren plant life. The Man (Adam?) I see throughout this collection is one who, after a youth of religious devotion and fervid expectation, has experienced a life that challenges that Springtime passion. At the end, he sees rather an absent God, one who has lost interest in His creation. But even then, the Man cannot deny God's existence, though at times it appears that this is his desire. It seems that the essence of God remains, but the Edenic rupture has yet to heal. Throughout the poems, there is a thread of anger, frustration, abandonment, and doubt as to whether that rupture can heal. But always there remains a sense of reality, even if that reality is difficult to put into words; the spiritual/religious elements are rooted in solid ground, not flitting about in ether.
A bit of the poem "Ostinato and Drone" speaks to this:
"It's reasonable to represent anything that really exists
by that thing which doesn't exist,
Daniel Defoe said.
and that's what we're talking about, the difference between the
voice and the word,
The voice continuing to come back in splendor,
the word still not forthcoming.
We're talking about the bush on fire.
We're talking about this quince bush, its noonday brilliance of light."
This book is not a skimmer. It deserves consideration. My observations are limited by my knowledge of Mr. Wright and my single reading of this collection.
What appeals to me most is the recurrent theme of internal spiritual/religious struggle and Wright's facility in connecting the natural with the supernatural in a realistic, non-fantastical way--from the recurrent references to the titular "Blue" that ties the Heavens with the Earth (e.g., Blue Ridge Mountains) to the constant use of images of winter-barren plant life. The Man (Adam?) I see throughout this collection is one who, after a youth of religious devotion and fervid expectation, has experienced a life that challenges that Springtime passion. At the end, he sees rather an absent God, one who has lost interest in His creation. But even then, the Man cannot deny God's existence, though at times it appears that this is his desire. It seems that the essence of God remains, but the Edenic rupture has yet to heal. Throughout the poems, there is a thread of anger, frustration, abandonment, and doubt as to whether that rupture can heal. But always there remains a sense of reality, even if that reality is difficult to put into words; the spiritual/religious elements are rooted in solid ground, not flitting about in ether.
A bit of the poem "Ostinato and Drone" speaks to this:
"It's reasonable to represent anything that really exists
by that thing which doesn't exist,
Daniel Defoe said.
and that's what we're talking about, the difference between the
voice and the word,
The voice continuing to come back in splendor,
the word still not forthcoming.
We're talking about the bush on fire.
We're talking about this quince bush, its noonday brilliance of light."
This book is not a skimmer. It deserves consideration. My observations are limited by my knowledge of Mr. Wright and my single reading of this collection.
October 22, 2008
Wright's best single collection of poems. His verse is a mystic reading of landscapes physical and spiritual.
It's kind of like tossing Walt Whitman and Lao Tzu in the large hadron collider.
It's kind of like tossing Walt Whitman and Lao Tzu in the large hadron collider.
August 15, 2011
What a great poet, I thought. What a way to write a poem.
February 27, 2025
Ok in a not weird way I’m pretty sure this guy is the same person as me does that make sense? At the heart level
Read
October 7, 2019“I inhabit who I am, as T’ao Ch’ing says, and walk about
Under the mindless clouds.
When it ends, it ends. What else?
One morning I’ll leave home and never find my way back—
My story and I will disappear together, just like this.”
Under the mindless clouds.
When it ends, it ends. What else?
One morning I’ll leave home and never find my way back—
My story and I will disappear together, just like this.”
June 18, 2007
I like the wordiness and the layers of adjectives just falling all over each other.
June 12, 2015
One of my favorite poets
January 17, 2016
Charles Wright great as always.
Read
January 12, 2017Wonderful. I could live in these poems.
March 28, 2008
A great compendium of Charles Wright's poetry
Read
April 26, 2012So far it is pretty good.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews