High Lonesome is a collection of essays about the work of the Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Charles Wright, including selected reviews of the individual books and essays that cover broader issues in his writing. The result is a complex and generous survey of Wright's "trilogy of trilogies," the sweeping project encompassed in the volumes entitled Country Music (1982), The World of the Ten Thousand Things (1990), and Negative Blue (2000). High Lonesome will serve both to introduce the scope and achievement of Wright's thirty-year project to new readers and to deepen and enhance the appreciation of those already familiar with it. The critics represented include Calvin Bedient, Christopher Buckley, Bonnie Costello, Stephen Cushman, David Kalstone, Adam Kirsch, James Longenbach, J. D. McClatchy, Carol Muske-Dukes, David St. John, Willard Spiegelman, Peter Stitt, Lee Upton, Helen Vendler, and David Young.