Synopses & Reviews
A powerfully moving meditation on life and the beyond, from one of our finest American poets
Charles Wrights truth—the truth of nature, of mans yearning for the divine, of aging—is at the heart of the renowned poets latest collection, Caribou. This is an elegy to transient beauty, a song for the "stepchild hour, / belonging to neither the light nor dark, / The hour of disappearing things," and an expression of Wrights restless questing for a reality beyond the one before our eyes ("We are all going into a world of dark . . . Its okay. Thats where the secrets are, / The big ones, the ones too tall to tell"). Caribous strength is in its quiet, wry profundity.
"Its good to be here," Wright tells us. "Its good to be where the worlds quiescent, and reminiscent." And to be here—in the pages of this stirring collection—is more than good; Caribou is another remarkable gift from the poet around whose influence "the whole world seems to orbit in a kind of meditative, slow circle" (Poetry).
Review
“Inside [Wrights] lyric, there resides a world well beyond the ordinary . . . It is the heart and soul that he delivers so eloquently.” —Thomas Curwen, Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
A powerfully moving meditation on life and the beyond, from one of our finest American poets
Charles Wright's truth--the truth of nature, of man's yearning for the divine, of aging--is at the heart of the renowned poet's latest collection, Caribou. This is an elegy to transient beauty, a song for the "stepchild hour, / belonging to neither the light nor dark, / The hour of disappearing things," and an expression of Wright's restless questing for a reality beyond the one before our eyes ("We are all going into a world of dark . . . It's okay. That's where the secrets are, / The big ones, the ones too tall to tell"). Caribou's strength is in its quiet, wry profundity.
"It's good to be here," Wright tells us. "It's good to be where the world's quiescent, and reminiscent." And to be here--in the pages of this stirring collection--is more than good; Caribou is another remarkable gift from the poet around whose influence "the whole world seems to orbit in a kind of meditative, slow circle" (Poetry).
About the Author
Charles Wright is the United States Poet Laureate. His poetry collections include Country Music, Black Zodiac, Chickamauga, Bye-and-Bye: Selected Later Poems, Sestets, and Caribou. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and the 2013 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. Born in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee in 1935, he currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.