Selected Poems

More than any other poet of his generation, James Wright spoke to the great sadness and hope that are inextricable from the iconography of America: its rail yards, rivers, cities, factories, and vast if vanishing natural beauty. Speaking in the unique lyrical voice that he called his "Ohioan," Wright created poems of immense sympathy for sociey's alienated and outcast figures and also of ardent wonder at the restorative power of nature.

Selected Poems fills a significant gap in Wright's bibliography: that of an accessible, carefully chosen collection to satisfy both longtime readers and those just discovering his work. Edited and with an introduction by Wright's widow, Anne, and his close friend the poet Robert Bly, who also wrote an introduction, Selected Poems is a personal, deeply considered collection of work with pieces chosen from all of Wright's books. It is an overdue—and timely—new view of a poet whose life and work encompassed the extremes of American life.

Praise

"James Wright wrote with more heart than any other North American poet of the 20th century."—Rodney Jones, Parnassus

"[Wright's] poems, with their grace and intelligence, not only stand as a rebuke to most of the glib work of his time, but remain among the finest examples of the midcentury American lyric. The poems continue, as a phrase from one of them puts it, to break into blossom."—J. D. McClatchy, The New York Times Book Review

"One of America's greatest poets of the second half of the 20th century . . . In compacting Wright's devastating vision and language into this volume, the editors have performed the marvelous task of identifying what made Wright a master of modern verse."—Ray Gonzalez, The Bloomsbury Review
 
"[Wright was] a tough, touching poet who, while never relinquishing his Midwestern roots, found ways to grow as a poet."—The New Republic

About the Author(s)

By James Wright, Robert Bly and Anne Wright

James Wright (1927-80) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. His books include Saint Judas, Shall We Gather at the River, and The Branch Will Not Break. FSG published Wright's Above the River: The Complete Poems in 1992.