Deepstep Come Shining [Hardcover]

C.D. Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2000

DEEPSTEP COME SHINING is a single long poem based loosely on a road trip through the rural South, in which mythology merges with geography and "language is on the page half-pulled out of earth and rivers--still holding onto the truth of the elements"--Michael Ondaatje. Wright teaches at Brown University and edits Lost Roads Publishers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Expertly elliptical phrasings, and an uncounterfeitable, generous feel for real people, bodies and places, have lately made Wright one of America's oddest, best and most appealing poets. Her tenth book consists of a single long poem whose sentences, segments and prose-blocks weave loosely around and about, and grow out of, a road trip through the rural South. Clipped twangs, lyrical "goblets of magnolialight," and recurrent, mysterious, semi-allegorical figures like "the snakeman" and "the boneman" share space with place names, lexicographies, exhortations and wacky graffiti ("God is Louise"). Wright alternates private references with clear allusions, as when images of eye enucleations and glass eyes culminate in a flurry of bits from King Lear. Deepstep teems with wry, rich sentences no one else could have written: "I left my chicory-blue swimsuit back at the motel where the baseball team cannonballed us out of the pool." She leaps exhilaratingly among verbal registers?from "kenatoprosthesis" to "trailer skirt," from "Arkansas toe" and "pinball" to "Ultima Thule." And she loves double meanings?"Morning glories. What's yours." Her uncharacteristically extroverted, ethnographic project also shows her sense of humor?"Her Aunt Flo said she hadn't had any in so long she'd done growed back together." In sorting these glittering, interlocking fragments of "self-conscious Southern poetry, preposterous as a wedding dress," some readers will wish Wright had included notes, or explained her extensive back story; but no one will need more information to cherish Wright's latest "once-and-for-all thing, opaque and revelatory, ceaselessly burning."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

Who are the Veals of Deepstep? The reader of Wright's ninth book of poetry (e.g., Tremble, Ecco, 1996) many never really know, but they are one of the bright verbal flashes in this word map of the American South. This book-length poem, punctuated by snippets of song lyrics, literary puns, and local color, moves by association of sound and image through parts of Georgia and South Carolina, focusing on towns that are probably too small for most maps: "West of Rome is Poetry. Poetry, Georgia. Wonder who lives/ there." While Wright drops tantalizing hints of her Arkansas upbringing, there is not much to relate it to the poem's cultural place-markers: the spot where Michael Jordan's father was murdered, an unidentified college that gives her the creeps. Wright is intelligent and witty and seems to be moving in a poetic direction she believes in, but for some readers special effects may not be an adequate substitute for linear plot and effect. For sophisticated collections.?Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press; First Edition edition (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556590938
• ISBN-13: 978-1556590931
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,068,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry at its very best..., November 8, 1998

By 

Robert E Haynes - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deepstep Come Shining (Paperback)

I finished the book this morning....literally couldn't put it down. Breathtaking. Engaging. Funny. Horrific. All-so-true. The eliptical style and interweaving of conversations come to a heartbreaking and honest conclusion. I began rereading it immediately once I reached the end, and felt the solidity in the confluence of voices apparent from the first page. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.... I can only rave. CD is able to (believe it, it's true) sustain tension, warmth, humor, and heartbreak through this epic to the very end.

CD's writing is definitely "of the earth" grounded in the physical as well as in the spiritual. The book: a single poem is worthy of the highest acclaim and prizes.... This book is destined to be a classic.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "blur in, blur out"...wright's illuminating language, April 17, 2000

By 

jean (somewhere she'd rather not be) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deepstep Come Shining (Paperback)

wright's "deepstep come shining" reads like flickers of light directly from the soul. rays of repetitive imagery and strange nudges of powerful sensation provide for a truly fascinating and poetically stimulating experience. anyone who is in love with the english language should take a look at this book. although it may be difficult if you are a fan of plots and storylines, the patches of nerve-tingling word combinations will be quite satisfying. wright weaves in combinations and unexpected relationships between places/objects/sensations like no one else. also, if you've seen the movie "smoke," this'll make you start a whole new analytical journey of wonder...:) enjoy...!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Breathtaking, April 12, 2000

By 

Julie Buzanowski (Lansing, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Deepstep Come Shining (Paperback)

CD Wright does the most amazing job at capturing her audience. Using elliptical thoughts and at times outlandish ideas, Deepstep is good to the last drop. When I read this I couldn't put it down and when I was done I had to read it again. I felt like each repeated image was a colorful thread and when all the threads were finally woven together they created this most amazing masterpiece. I recommend that if you like poetry at all, get this book, it's definately a keeper.