Customer Reviews

In Primary Light (Iowa Poetry Prize)

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Wood is possibly the best Southern poet currently writing. His work functions both intellectually and emotionally without being sentimental or academic. He can also be humorous without lessening the emotional impact of his poems. In Primary Light is perhaps the best example of the depth and the breadth of his poetry. If you love poetry, then I strongly suggest you pick up this book.

I love the poetry of John Wood, who I believe may be the greatest living poet in the English language. Wood gives expression to the deepest feelings of empathy of any poet I have read, silently or aloud. His choice of words and images evokes the strong passions associated with sexual hunger and emotional loss. I not only see the characters in his poetry, but I feel what they feel and fall out of my world and into the world of the poem.

Excerpt from "The Perils of Beauty:"

"That beauty's peril lies beyond

any skeptic's doubt, beyond

the conundrums of cool, inscrutable sages, ...

. . .

she was still combing, and at ten o'clock

women were talking to her, but she just combed

and combed and stared at the sun, ..."

My best effort to describe the poetry of John Wood is to say that it is deeply sensitive emotion captured in words. Maybe that is all poetry, but John Wood does it better than most.