Above the River: The Complete Poems

I hate to give this work anything less than 5-stars, because at the moment (and probably most future moments) I revere James Wright's poetry. He makes blue collar blackened river Ohio come alive riven death with darkness and life. So this book is a must for poetry lovers.Where it distracts me is the attempts at completeness is a difficult editor's dilemma and one that doesn't serve the poet or the poet's reader well here. There are two James Wright's out there (this book presents three), as is true with most sublimated artist that pass through a learning phase before hitting on their voice, their style.James Wright started as a formalist (not my favored style) hailing structure and rhyme sometimes at the expense of meaning and language (disclaimer...one man's humble opinion belies a personal taste and no two taste buds seem the same). The book of course being a complete work, offers all of those poems of bandied prose. And then the editor offers a bridge or break of sorts in Wright's translated works of German and Spanish poets. Wright was a great poet in English, but the gift of gifted translation should have been left to the likes of W.S. Merwin, Anthony Kerrigan, Charles Tomlinson, and Stephen Mitchell for Neruda, Paz, and Rilke.So, Wright's "Above the River," really first breaks the surface on page 119 after his epiphany to all thing free form. It is then that his poetry sings darkly. I leave you with some of Wright's beautiful language (there's plenty to be had). Buy the book for the rest.In Fear of HarvestsIt has happenedBefore: nearby,The nostrils of slow horsesBreathe evenly,And the brown bees drag their high garlands,Heavily,Toward hives of snow.

This volume is fascinating, because it does show the different stages of Wright's development as a poet and a writer (the prose sketches and descriptions of Italy are wonderful).The early poems are extremely capable but there is a sense in which they feel constrained by formal verse conventions, especially rhyme. This becomes evident when he writes in free verse and his voice becomes easier and more vernacular. Some of the poems like "Hook" and "To A Blossoming Pear Tree" are wonderful:'An old man / Appeared to me once / In the unendurable snow./ He had singe of white beard on his face. / He paused on a strett on Minneapolis / And stroked my face. // Give it to me, he begged / I'll pay you anything. // I flinched. Both terrified, / We slunk away, / Each in his own way dodging / The cruel darts of the cold. "There are some late poems when he becomes almost incoherent, but the centre of the book is a whole series of poems as powerful and honest as this.

Am enjoying reading Wright's poems.

If you haven't read Wright, get thee to a nunnery or monastery. Wright's poems are monastic in their seeming simplicity, devout in their allegiance to rhe brilliant, broken world, and determined in their use of the striking image, the so-called deep image championed by Robert Bly. Though there's some repetition in his body of work, so many individual poems will hold your attention that you'll emerge from this book refreshed if not enlightened, and grateful for the bounty of his world.

This collection brings together both the greater & lesser known works of James Wright so that students or lovers of poetry can get a true feeling for his style & focus. Some pieces seem less focused, while others hone in with cruel beauty on those moments where the literal and the figurative worlds collide. Brilliant poet. I recommend this book especially to serious students of poetry.

James Wright's poems are acts of courage. His persistent advocacy of the underdog is real and clear-eyed(American Twilights 1957, written fo the executed killer Caryl Chessman). "Arrangements with Earth for Three Dead Friends" is one of the most moving elegies I know in the language (taken from his early career). Then there are the wonderful and luminous translations "ten Short Poems: from the Spanish of Juan Ramon Jiminez, Pablo Neruda's "Anguish of Death", Cesar Vallejo's "I Am Freed" and many others. These are vital and wide-ranging poems that belong in every library.

James Wright is a terrific, though not well known, American poet of the 1950's and 60's. Along with Robert Bly and William Duffey, Wright helped to open a new page in modern poetry which encouraged writers to break from the restrictions of traditional British formats. Personal and reflective, the poems focus on nature and have a strong touch of influence from ancient Chinese poets. Though the collection is filled with great stuff, my favorite is "Northern Pike."

didnt read much and have forgottonrural Ohio ? OKone day I;l take another look

I consider James Wright to be the perfect American poet. His love and absorption of nature, his wonderful way of writing about it - I recommend this Complete Poems to everyone I meet who loves poetry.