This wonder book opened my mind to a different approach to poetry. I had a very hard time getting through the book, because after every couple of pages I wanted to grab a pen and paper and write! I would add it to the must-read list.
Through more than a dozen collections, C.D. Wright pushed the bounds of imagination as she explored desire, loss and physical sensation. Her posthumously published book, ShallCross features seven poem sequences that show her tremendous range in style and approach. As she considers, among other topics, some dark intuitions about human nature, she also nudges readers to question who is telling the story and where one’s thought can lead.Wright gets better with each book, expanding the reach of her art; it seems it could take in anything.
In a turbulent world, C.D. Wright evokes a rebellious and dissonant ethos with characteristic genre-bending and expanding long-form poems. Accessing journalistic writing alongside filmic narratives, Wright ranges across seven poetic sequences, including a collaborative suite responding to photographic documentation of murder sites in New Orleans. ShallCross shows plain as day that C.D. Wright is our most thrilling and innovative poet.
From "Obscurity and Elegance":
Whether or not the park was safe
she was going in. A study concluded, for a park
to be successful there had to be women.
The man next to the monument must have broken
away from her. Perhaps years
before. That the bond had been carnal is obvious.
He said he was just out clearing his head…
C.D. Wright (1949-2016) taught at Brown University for decades and published over a dozen works of poetry and prose, including One With Others, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was nominated for a National Book Award; One Big Self: An Investigation; and Rising Falling Hovering. Among her many honors are the Griffin International Poetry Prize and a MacArthur Fellowship.
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