A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright [Paperback]

James Wright (Author), Anne Wright (Editor), Saundra Rose Maley (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2008

"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," wrote James Wright, one of the great lyric poets of the last century, in a letter. A Wild Perfection is a riveting collection that captures the exhilarating and moving correspondence between Wright and his many friends. In the 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. Bright threads of wit, gallantry, and passion for describing his travels and his beloved natural world run through all these letters, which together form 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Wright (1927–1980) is well served by his wife and Maley, an English professor specializing in his verse, who have gathered nearly 35 years' worth of correspondence, from his high school graduation to his death. The letters begin in 1946; Wright has already started translating foreign poets into English, informing a teacher that "Catullus is as dear to me as are sleep and music." Through the decades, his rough translations of poets from Rilke to Lorca also find their way into his correspondence. Wright could go on at great length, especially to his closest friends, who included fellow poets such as Robert Bly and James Dickey—in the latter case, only after Wright offered a humble apology for responding angrily to a bad review. Short biographical notes preface each of the book's sections, but more context would have been welcome for matters such as Wright's "catathymic" (i.e., manic) depression. For many, though, the most valuable material will be an appendix of more than 50 pages of previously unpublished poems and early drafts of published work. That, and the raw evidence of Wright's personal voice—with its passion for poetry and deep sensitivity to others—greatly enhance our understanding of his poetry. (July 13)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"The compilation is beautifully executed, a treat for scholars and lay readers alike. Wright emerges from his own pages, relentlessly hardworking, perennially eager to learn, generous in his praise, at once plagued by his depressions and alive to the possibility."--Judith Kitchen , The Georgia Review

"His own harshest critic, Wright famously 'cracked the iambic shell' of tradition, but he also defended traditional poets... His letters constitute an eloquent defense of poetry as a spiritual discipline."--Tom D'Evelyn, The Providence Journal

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan (April 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819568724
• ISBN-13: 978-0819568724
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,789,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth of James Wright, February 7, 2008

By 

Stephen E. Adams "cloudislands.com" (Lopez Island, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright (Hardcover)

"A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright" is one of the most entertaining collections of American literary correspondence since Flannery O'Connor's "Habit of Being." The letters of poet and teacher James Wright, which have been selected and edited by his wife, Anne, and Professor Saundra Rose Maley, begin when he's a young man in the army in 1946 and continue through until his death by cancer in 1980.

If there is one salient trait that comes through in these letters, it is his deep compassion for others, the sense that James Wright was really a very nice guy. Despite bouts of poverty and chronic alcoholism, he never waxed cynical about the world or those around him.

His correspondence includes letters to Robert Bly, James Dickey, Mary Oliver, and Theodore Roethke, and Wright is at his most entertaining when he is related daily anecdotes.

In a letter to his friend, the poet Donald Hall, Wright wrote: "Whatever a poet has been in the past, right now he is defined, to me, as a man who has both the power and the courage to see, and then, to show, the truth through words. If I'm a bad poet, that means a liar."

The truth of James Wright resounds throughout these letters.