One Big Self

ISBN: 1556592582

Author: Wright, C.D.

Condition: New

"For a long while now, C. D. Wright has been writing some of the greatest poetry-cum-prose you can find in American literature. One Big Self does to the contemporary prison-industrial complex what James Agee did to poverty it reacts passionately and lyrically (and idiosyncratically) to a sociopolitical abomination. This book, while angry and sorrowful and bewildered, has humor, constant levity and candor, and countless moments of incredible beauty." Dave Eggers, The New York Times Book ReviewWright has found a way to wed fragments of an iconic America to a luminously strange idiom, eerie as a tin whistle, which she uses to evoke the haunted quality of our carnal existence.The New YorkerInspired by numerous visits inside Louisiana state prisonswhere MacArthur Fellow C.D. Wright served as a factotum for a portrait photographerOne Big Self bears witness to incarcerated men and women and speaks to the psychic toll of protracted time passed in constricted space. It is a riveting mosaic of distinct voices, epistolary pieces, elements from a moralistic board game, road signage, prison data, inmate correspondence, and counts of thingsfrom babys teeth to chigger bites:Count your folding moneyCount the times you said you wouldnt go backCount your debtsCount the roaches when the light comes onCount your kids after the housefireOne Big Selforiginally published as a large-format limited edition that featured photographs and textwas selected by The New York Times and The Village Voice as a notable book of the year. This edition features the poem exclusively.C.D. Wright is the author of ten books of poetry, including several collaborations with photographer Deborah Luster. She is a professor at Brown University.