The Early Poetry of Charles Wright

This companion covers Charles Wright’s first two trilogies, Country Music (1982) and The World of the Ten Thousand Things (1990), providing biographical details, information on Wright’s sources and influences, and historical notes. It pays special attention to the way that Wright’s poems work together and the links that are formed between them. While each poem is given its own commentary, the author argues that they work together in a concentrated whole to document a man’s spiritual journey.

Robert D. Denham is John P. Fishwick Professor of English Emeritus at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. He has also taught at Emory & Henry College, after which he served as Director of English Programs and Director of the Association of Departments of English for the Modern Language Association. He has written and edited more than twenty-five volumes on Frye.

Robert D. Denham

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 199
Bibliographic Info: appendices, notes, index
Copyright Date: 2009
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4198-3
Imprint: McFarland

Preface      1
List of Abbreviations and Shortened Forms      3
A Charles Wright Chronology      5
Introduction      9

Part I. The First Trilogy: Country Music: Selected Early Poems
Chapter 1. The Grave of the Right Hand and Hard Freight      17
Chapter 2. Bloodlines      39
Chapter 3. China Trace      58

Part II. The Second Trilogy: The World of the Ten Thousand Things: Poems 1980–1990
Chapter 4. The Southern Cross      88
Chapter 5. The Other Side of the River      115
Chapter 6. Zone Journals and Xionia      138

Appendix 1: Reviews of Wright’s Books, 1968–1990      177
Appendix 2. Secondary Sources on Wright’s Poetry      181
Index      187

• “Invaluable to anyone wanting to teach, or even to read, the early poetry of Charles Wright”—Appalachian Heritage