C.D. Wright published more than fifteen collections of poetry and prose. One With Others (2010) was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lenore Marshal Prize. Reviewing Rising, Falling, Hovering (2008), The New York Times noted: "C.D. Wright belongs to a school of exactly one." Her collaboration with photographer Deborah Luster, One Big Self, focused on Louisiana prisoners, was honored with a Lange-Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies. She also received awards from the Lannan Foundation and Foundation for Contemporary Arts. In 2004 she was named a MacArthur Fellow and in 2005, she was the recipient of the Robert Creeley Award. Other honors include the International Griffin Prize for Poetry in 2009 and the Donald Justice Award for Poetry in 2013. Wright is from the Arkansas Ozarks. In the mid-nineties, with a fellowship from the Wallace Foundation, she curated "a walk-in book of Arkansas," a touring exhibition. She developed two state literary maps, one of Arkansas, her native state, and one of Rhode Island. In 2015 Wright published a book of poetry, ShallCross, and a book of prose: The Poet, The Lion,Talking Pictures, El Farolito, A Wedding in St. Roch, The Big Box Store, The Warp in the Mirror, Spring, Midnights, Fire & All with Copper Canyon. After living many years outside of Providence, Rhode Island, where she was on faculty at Brown University, Wright passed away in early 2016.
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Steal AwayNew and Selected PoemsFrom"Petition for Replenishment"
We do not mean to complain. We know how it is.
In older, even sadder cultures the worst possible sorts
have been playing hot and cold with people’s lives
for much longer. Like Perrow says,
We’ll all have baboon hearts one of these days.
We wintered with ample fuel and real tomatoes.
We were allowed to roam, sniffing and chewing
at the tufted crust. We were let to breathe.
That is, we respirated. Now the soft clocks
have gorged themselves on our time. Yet
as our hair blanches and comes out
in hanks, we can tell it is nearly spring –
the students shed their black coats
on the green; we begin to see shade.
Lo, this is the breastbone’s embraceable light.
We are here. Still breathing and constellated.
Steal Away : New and Selected Poems -
Steal AwayNew and Selected PoemsFrom"Old Man With a Dog"
climbing the hill
in a heavy coat
to Sunset Manor
to comb his wife’s
white clumps of hair,
muttering,
72 years,
what you cannot
end up with
in 72 years.
Eating at the stovein his heavy coat.
Watching TV
with the dog.
72 years
on the heel of this
Christbitten hill.
72 years
he wonders aloud,
What will I do?How will I live?
Steal Away : New and Selected Poems -
Steal AwayNew and Selected PoemsFrom"Just Whistle: A Valentine"
DUSTY APPLES IN A DUSTY KITCHEN. Ferns brushing their
fronds. Sound of water. Sloshing. Body atop an ice-cream parlor
chair. Finger tracing salt on the table. The body on its hinges.
Midafternoon hysterics. What does the body want. For God’s
sake? What a lousy situation. A good whipping. A night or two
in the pokey wouldn’t hurt. To meet another body coming
through the halm. Swinging its plums freely. Awhistling.
Steal Away : New and Selected Poems
Selected Works
