One Big Self Paperback – April 1, 2007

Photography was superior.

I love the language, the point of view, the conscience, the references. There seemed to be some pages missing though. Not sure how that happened in the Kindle edition or how to remedy it.

I'm a big C. D. Wright fan, anyway, and I especially liked this book. NPR had done a feature on the photography project that led to the writings featured here. She's done an outstanding job capturing the mood of the inmates and the country.

Challenging and provoking, pushes thinking and understanding to further level.

Depressing, but "informative," in the Leonard Cohen sense: Everyone should know these painful truths and consider the plight of those imprisoned.

Fascinating book.

This is a book you read over and over again, the poetry falls down through language and past it into some netherworld between self and shadow. This is what great poetry should be and should do, make you want to write better, make you understand what it means to be human, undo language and then remake it. Thread life and story into typeface. And the book itself is beautiful. Copper Canyon doesn't make ugly books. So much poetry I read is endlessly about the self or is simply masturbating with language, or adhering to form until it becomes boring. Wright makes none of those mistakes. This poetry, relating to the prison system has weight. C. D. Wright is functioning at full power; it makes you want to write and it makes you want to give up writing all at once. Read this and read again what poetry is breaking into in the 21st century, a new place, a new rhythm.