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The Essential C.D. Wright
Spanning four decades of writing—and including never-before-seen poems—The Essential C.D. Wright carries the reverence and wisecracking lyricism of poems that reshaped American poetry.
The Essential C.D. Wright gathers rare selections across the famed poet’s entire oeuvre—from the first book, Alla Breve Loving (1976), through to ShallCross, 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. A formally restless, energetic, uncompromising, and utterly unique voice, 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. With a moving introduction by Forrest Gander, this volume cements C.D. Wright’s place in the literary canon.
The Essential C.D. Wright gathers rare selections across the famed poet’s entire oeuvre—from the first book, Alla Breve Loving (1976), through to ShallCross, 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. A formally restless, energetic, uncompromising, and utterly unique voice, 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. With a moving introduction by Forrest Gander, this volume cements C.D. Wright’s place in the literary canon.
- GenresPoetry
208 pages, Paperback
Published May 13, 2025
8 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
C.D. Wright
43 books99 followersC. D. Wright was born in Mountain Home, Arkansas. She earned a BA in French from Memphis State College (now the University of Memphis) in 1971 and briefly attended law school before leaving to pursue an MFA from the University of Arkansas, which she received in 1976. Her poetry thesis was titled Alla Breve Loving.
In 1977 the publishing company founded by Frank Stanford, Lost Roads Publishers, published Wright's first collection, Room Rented by A Single Woman. After Stanford died in 1978, Wright took over Lost Roads, continuing the mission of publishing new poets and starting the practice of publishing translations. In 1979, she moved to San Francisco, where she met poet Forrest Gander. Wright and Gander married in 1983 and had a son, Brecht, and co-edited Lost Roads until 2005.
In 1981, Wright lived in Dolores Hidalgo, Mexico and completed her third book of poems, Translation of the Gospel Back into Tongues. In 1983 she moved to Providence, Rhode Island to teach writing at Brown University as the Israel J. Kapstein Professor of English. In 2013,
C.D. Wright died on January 12, 2016 at the age of 67 in Barrington, Rhode Island.
In 1977 the publishing company founded by Frank Stanford, Lost Roads Publishers, published Wright's first collection, Room Rented by A Single Woman. After Stanford died in 1978, Wright took over Lost Roads, continuing the mission of publishing new poets and starting the practice of publishing translations. In 1979, she moved to San Francisco, where she met poet Forrest Gander. Wright and Gander married in 1983 and had a son, Brecht, and co-edited Lost Roads until 2005.
In 1981, Wright lived in Dolores Hidalgo, Mexico and completed her third book of poems, Translation of the Gospel Back into Tongues. In 1983 she moved to Providence, Rhode Island to teach writing at Brown University as the Israel J. Kapstein Professor of English. In 2013,
C.D. Wright died on January 12, 2016 at the age of 67 in Barrington, Rhode Island.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 5, 2025
C.D. Wright's poetry is breathtaking. This collection is, by its nature, a glimpse into the vast and comprehensive work Wright left behind when she died unexpectedly in 2016 at the so-young age of 67. She was a poet who gave generously to other writers, who never stopped working at her craft; it's heartbreaking to think of all the words she might have shared with the world had she not been taken so soon.
What remains are sixteen published works of poetry and prose. The Essential C.D. Wright captures excerpts from these works, as well as offering up a handful of unpublished pieces. It shows the breadth of her skill, styles, themes and passions. I was particularly moved by her earlier work—from the 70s and 80s—that has such a deep sense of place and sensuality. It's more personal that later poems that are rooted in political exigencies. I also loved the excerpts from Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil, a set of small essays about language, poetry, and her relationship with fellow poet Forrest Gander (who co-edited with collection with Copper Canyon Press editor Michael Wiegers and wrote a poignant introduction).
Open any page in this lovely assemblage of Wright's work and be spellbound by her vision, her longings, her fury, her wisdom. Essential, indeed.
What remains are sixteen published works of poetry and prose. The Essential C.D. Wright captures excerpts from these works, as well as offering up a handful of unpublished pieces. It shows the breadth of her skill, styles, themes and passions. I was particularly moved by her earlier work—from the 70s and 80s—that has such a deep sense of place and sensuality. It's more personal that later poems that are rooted in political exigencies. I also loved the excerpts from Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil, a set of small essays about language, poetry, and her relationship with fellow poet Forrest Gander (who co-edited with collection with Copper Canyon Press editor Michael Wiegers and wrote a poignant introduction).
Open any page in this lovely assemblage of Wright's work and be spellbound by her vision, her longings, her fury, her wisdom. Essential, indeed.
February 16, 2025
RIP C. D. Wright (1949-2016)
This is a fascinating extended look at the tour de force that is C. D. Wrights poetic career. Beginning in 1967 this selected works brings readers through the growth of one of americas most important poetic voices. Including never before published poems and drafts, this is a wonderful book for any poetry lovers shelf.
This is a fascinating extended look at the tour de force that is C. D. Wrights poetic career. Beginning in 1967 this selected works brings readers through the growth of one of americas most important poetic voices. Including never before published poems and drafts, this is a wonderful book for any poetry lovers shelf.
May 15, 2025
"What will my new instrument be
Just this water glass
this untunable spoon
Something else is out there
goddamnit
And I want to hear it" — "And It Came to Pass"
There's a convincing argument to be made that Copper Canyon deserves a Pulitzer for keeping C. D. Wright in print. This is a magnificent gathering of some of her very best work.
Just this water glass
this untunable spoon
Something else is out there
goddamnit
And I want to hear it" — "And It Came to Pass"
There's a convincing argument to be made that Copper Canyon deserves a Pulitzer for keeping C. D. Wright in print. This is a magnificent gathering of some of her very best work.
Read
October 23, 2025"even though the sound of the river was not there/ the memory of the sound was/ even though her husband did not appear in the door/ talking to her about the day ahead/ the day ahead was there" (9)
"thoughts, mothlike, fluttered but didn't/ distinguish themselves...the collision of debris that created the moon" (12)
"It's beautiful she thinks--/ snow nobody has walked on" (37)
"In my book love is darker/ Than cola" (44)
"A girl sits out-of-doors in her slip./ She turns fourteen, twenty-eight, fifty-six,/ goes crazy" (46)
"We fall/ through the night's caesura" (56)
"There is the river, the horrible featherless bird. The tree/ not a true palm but of the palm family" (59)
"The poet of good walking shoes-- a necessity/ in vernacular parts" (66)
"I have seen myself/ in the black car. I have seen the retreat/ of the black car" (67)
"No matter where I call home anymore, feel like a boat under/ the trees. Living is strange" (74)
"One wants/ to create a bright/ new past/ one creates it" (84)
"Those dark arkansas roads/ that is the sound/ I am after/ the choiring of crickets/ Around this time of year/ especially evening/ I love everything" (89)
"A moth as big as a girl's hand spreads itself out on/ the screendoor. The house smells like beets. For in this poem it/ is always Arkansas, summer, evening. But in truth, the poem/ never sleeps unless I do, for if I were to come upon it sleeping,/ I would net it. And that would be that, my splendid catch" (115)
"Veering in the elusory direction of freedom, I would submit,/ it is a function of poetry to locate these zones inside us that/ would be free and declare them so" (116)
"Begin with nothing, remote starting point, the area of darkest/ color. Begin with nothing, which is yourself, Eternal Stranger,/ the poem that always acts alone. The poem supplies its references from its own surround. Sounds its own memory. The/ mind of the poem passes along interior surfaces. One does not/ contact the poem's ground without feeling bound to its secrecy" (118)
"The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline, but a gradual lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity" (118)
"Notwithstanding scale-- everything has its meaning,/ every thing matters; no one a means every one an end" (124)
"Poetry is the one arena where I am not inclined to crank up the fog machine, to palter or dissemble or quaver or hastily reverse myself. This is the one scene where I advance determined, if not precisely ready, to do battle with what an overly cited Jungian described as the anesthetized heart, the heart that does not react" (184)
"Poems are my building projects. I inhabit them for the time it takes to have every corner lit, and then I clear out, taking what I think I need to start over" (185)
"Margaret Avison says poetry results when every word is written in the full light of all a writer knows" (194)
"thoughts, mothlike, fluttered but didn't/ distinguish themselves...the collision of debris that created the moon" (12)
"It's beautiful she thinks--/ snow nobody has walked on" (37)
"In my book love is darker/ Than cola" (44)
"A girl sits out-of-doors in her slip./ She turns fourteen, twenty-eight, fifty-six,/ goes crazy" (46)
"We fall/ through the night's caesura" (56)
"There is the river, the horrible featherless bird. The tree/ not a true palm but of the palm family" (59)
"The poet of good walking shoes-- a necessity/ in vernacular parts" (66)
"I have seen myself/ in the black car. I have seen the retreat/ of the black car" (67)
"No matter where I call home anymore, feel like a boat under/ the trees. Living is strange" (74)
"One wants/ to create a bright/ new past/ one creates it" (84)
"Those dark arkansas roads/ that is the sound/ I am after/ the choiring of crickets/ Around this time of year/ especially evening/ I love everything" (89)
"A moth as big as a girl's hand spreads itself out on/ the screendoor. The house smells like beets. For in this poem it/ is always Arkansas, summer, evening. But in truth, the poem/ never sleeps unless I do, for if I were to come upon it sleeping,/ I would net it. And that would be that, my splendid catch" (115)
"Veering in the elusory direction of freedom, I would submit,/ it is a function of poetry to locate these zones inside us that/ would be free and declare them so" (116)
"Begin with nothing, remote starting point, the area of darkest/ color. Begin with nothing, which is yourself, Eternal Stranger,/ the poem that always acts alone. The poem supplies its references from its own surround. Sounds its own memory. The/ mind of the poem passes along interior surfaces. One does not/ contact the poem's ground without feeling bound to its secrecy" (118)
"The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline, but a gradual lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity" (118)
"Notwithstanding scale-- everything has its meaning,/ every thing matters; no one a means every one an end" (124)
"Poetry is the one arena where I am not inclined to crank up the fog machine, to palter or dissemble or quaver or hastily reverse myself. This is the one scene where I advance determined, if not precisely ready, to do battle with what an overly cited Jungian described as the anesthetized heart, the heart that does not react" (184)
"Poems are my building projects. I inhabit them for the time it takes to have every corner lit, and then I clear out, taking what I think I need to start over" (185)
"Margaret Avison says poetry results when every word is written in the full light of all a writer knows" (194)
May 26, 2025
If you're new to reading C.D. Wright and want a glimpse at her work, this is a good place to start. Otherwise Steal Away: Selected and New Poems (2003) is another good starting point.
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November 20, 2025DNF. Not for me.
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January 24, 2026cd wright i love you !!! that is all.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews