Appalachia

"Has any other American poet been writing as beautifully and daringly over the past twenty-five years as Charles Wright? Possibly. But I cannot imagine who it would be. . . . [Wright] plumbs our deepest relationships with nature, time, love, death, creation." --Philip Levine, American Poet citation for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize

"In an age of casual faithlessness, Wright successfully reconstitutes the provocative tension between belief and materialism." --Albert Mobilio, The Village Voice

"A significant and true reflection of our time." --Adam Kirsch, The New York Times Book Review

"A culmination of his career. . . . Appalachia shows again why Wright is generally considered one of America's leading poets." --Harold Branam, Magill's Literary Annual

"Wright, recipient of numerous prestigious literary prizes, is a philosopher-poet with a gift for gloriously whimsical imagery and a keen sense of the ephemeral. His inquisitive poems reside at the crux of faith and art. . . . In bright leaping lines reminiscent of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a kindred spirit also enthralled by nature yet keenly aware of our isolation from it, Wright tries to connect with the spiritual by conjuring the ancient beaming of stars, winter's starkness, and the valor of flowers. Finally, in sweet, bemused surrender, he acknowledges both the impossibility of certainty, and our insatiable hunger for it." --Donna Seaman, Booklist