A Wild Perfection The Selected Letters of James Wright

by Wright, James; Wright, Anne; Blunk, Jonathan; Maley, Saundra Rose

• ISBN13: 9780374530174
• ISBN10: 0374530173
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2099-01-01
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

As James Wright, one of the great lyric poets of the last century, wrote in a letter to a friend: "There is something about the very form and occasion of a letter--the possibility it offers, the chance to be as open and tentative and uncertain as one likes and also the chance to formulate certain ideas, very precisely--if one is lucky in one's thoughts."A Wild Perfectionis a riveting collection that captures the exhilarating and moving correspondence between Wright and his many friends. In his letters to fellow poets Donald Hall, Theodore Roethke, Galway Kinnell, James Dickey, Mary Oliver, and Robert Bly, Wright explored many subjects, poetic and personal, from his creative process to his struggles with depression and illness.A Wild Perfectionis no less than an epistolary chronicle of a significant part of the mid-century American poetry renaissance, as well as the clearest biographical picture now available of this major American poet.

Author Biography

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 Above the River: The Complete Poems in 1992.

Table of Contents

“[The letters] are important in part for the insight they offer into American postwar poetry, of which Wright was a leading figure. . . Wright approached letter-writing like Keats and Rilke, as a chance to work his craft and stretch his sensibilities . . . His letters are rife with intellect and learning.” —Andrew Frisardi, The Los Angeles Times
 
“The thirst for connection that compels Wright's impassioned letter writing is closely related to the intense lyricism of his poems.” —David Orr, The New York Times Book Review