Bledsoe: Poems (Volume 7)

by William Wright

Bledsoe is an extended narrative poem that centers on a mute Appalachian man named Durant Bledsoe. Specifically, the poem takes place in the mountains of Yancey County, North Carolina, in an early part of the 20th century. Durant Bledsoe’s mother is dying with a brain tumor and he must take care of her, all the while coming to terms with the fact that she, in her suffering, has asked him to take her life. The book focuses much on landscape and on Bledsoe’s complex psychology and perceptions of the world, specifically as they apply to culture, family, religion, and identity.

"Rarely has a contemporary poetic voice achieved the incantatory with such skill, echoes of Cormac McCarthy's word-hoard pulsing throughout!"—Kathryn Stripling Byer

“Sometimes a prayer, sometimes a scream, sometimes a folksong, the poem is a narrative of care giving, devotion, violence, and love. You will not soon forget it.”—Robert Morgan

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published July 16, 2011

About the author

William Wright is author of seven collections of poetry: four full-length books, including Tree Heresies (Mercer University Press, forthcoming), Night Field Anecdote (Louisiana Literature Press, 2011), Bledsoe (Texas Review Press, 2011), and Dark Orchard (Texas Review Press, 2006, winner of the Breakthrough Poetry Prize). Wright’s chapbooks are Sleep Paralysis (Stepping Stones Press, 2012, Winner of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Prize, selected by Kwame Dawes), Xylem & Heartwood (Finishing Line Press, 2013), and The Ghost Narratives (Finishing Line Press, 2008). Recent work can be found in The Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, Southern Poetry Review, Oxford American, Shenandoah, and many others. Wright is Series Editor and Volume Co-editor of The Southern Poetry Anthology, a multivolume series celebrating contemporary writing of the American South, published by Texas Review Press. Additionally Wright serves as a contributing editor for Shenandoah, translates German poetry, and is editing three volumes, including Grit Po: Rough South Poetry (with Daniel Cross Turner). Wright won the 2012 Porter Fleming Prize in Literature.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A haunting narrative that I read in a single sitting. It redefines and raises the bar of the long poem.

[Thomas Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I began to read this book thinking it a collections of poems, of which I might read one or two, to get the feel of it, and then move on. At once, the brilliant language and imagery harpooned me, and then the story line drew tight and reeled me in. I wallowed in dialogue rendered so exact that I could hear the folk as though they stood beside me. This moving tale, exquisitely wrought, makes the mountains sing.

[Colorado Review]

Read our review by Daniel M. Mendoza at http://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/r...

[Kathleen Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a mesmerizing long poem - and a true work of art.

[Charles White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grinding, evocative fatalism.

[Sandy Duteau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I see a movie in the future.