Pulitzer Prize Poetry Winner
Collected Poems
by James Wright
Summary
The collected work traces Wright's passage from formal early verse to the open, deep image lyric for which readers best remember him. He attends to drunks, prisoners, Ohio fields, and small wounded animals, finding tenderness in the scarred industrial heartland. The book confirmed him as one of the great elegists of working class and rural American life.
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Historical Context & Significance
Wright is celebrated for finding a profound, lonely beauty in the industrial and rural decay of the Ohio River Valley.