The question I had when I began the process for this cluster, “C.D. Wright in Context,” at its heart had to do with influence, but not exclusively in the way…
Contemporaries Essays
“Moving Under My Dress”: C.D. Wright and Clothing
In Just Whistle (1993), Tremble (1996), and One Big Self (2003),1 C.D. Wright treats clothing as a liminal space or a semipermeable membrane between the self and the world. We…
The Dialogue of the Eye: Wright, Truitt, and Martin
Not to know but to go on.Anything is a mirror.There are two endless directions. In and out.1 — Agnes Martin In The Poet, the Lion, Talking Pictures, El Farolito, a…
The Medium-Close Poetics of C.D. Wright’s One Big Self
The lines, “That’s hard / I don’t go there,” appear twice, near the beginning of C.D. Wright’s One Big Self: An Investigation, a poetic collaboration with the photographer, Deborah Luster,…
“Licked by Many Other Tongues”: C.D. Wright’s Deepstep Come Shining
What will my new instrument be Just this water glassthis untunable spoon Something else is out theregoddamnit And I want to hear it − C.D. Wright, “And It Came to…
“Hateful words survive in sticky clumps”: Forms of Whiteness in C. D. Wright’s One With Others
You could count on her to tell you who she was. Take it from her four decades of author’s and contributor’s notes, those dozens of third-person self-introductions. In her first…
“Words appeared / by which she wanted to live”: C. D. Wright’s Realism
Nobody needs to prove, in 2025, that C. D. Wright was an influential poet, or a beloved teacher, or someone who continues to be read and studied today. Few American…
Love Without Optimism: C.D. Wright and the Tradition of American Sentimentality
“[Poetry] is the one scene where I advance determined, if not precisely ready, to do battle with what an overly cited Jungian described as the anesthetized heart, the heart that…
Deep River Pedagogy
You ready yourselffor the restless transmission. This week: Mr. Wieners.I’ll spread the word. So you turn to supplication,this filial work. Words snaked from the drainon John Street. Wadded, casting for…
Introduction
It was the summer of 2006 and I’d just met a guy and couldn’t stop daydreaming about him. He was good looking with piercing blue eyes and dark hair. He…