Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Steal Away: Selected and New Poems
    Steal Away: Selected and New Poems
    Steal Away: Selected and New Poems
    Ebook266 pages2 hours

    Steal Away: Selected and New Poems

    By C.D. Wright

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    · paperback of successful cloth edition · Wright is a poet whose reputation continues to grow and grow (though we were shocked she was not nominated for a National Book Award) · Steal Away will be on the short list for the Griffin Prize (major literary prize from Canada)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopper Canyon Press
    Release dateJul 1, 2013
    ISBN9781619320963
    Steal Away: Selected and New Poems

    Read more from C.D. Wright

    Related to Steal Away

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Five Poems
      5 min read

    • Article

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year

      Jan 3, 2019

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year
      7 min read

    • Article

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2020

      She was a security guard and even though her uniform was black I could seeIt was covered in blood, the marble floor was covered in blood, it wasSlowly pooling out from the space where HER HAND used to beOh my god, I said, then I started to say, YOUR

      3 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      It is all, allover the earth, underearth, a graveyard: tree ferns, trees—roots,bark, seeds—ancientlife that emerged from the sea, forestsflooded to swamps& bogs, transformed to peat, transformedagain, sunk, coveredwith layers of earth with strangeamp

      2 min read

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      Fifteen Poets on Revision

      Feb 27, 2018

      After 17 drafts over two weeks, Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art” was completed on November 4, 1975. The poem began as notes, and evolved into a villanelle. She changed the title. She deleted words. She reached for possible rhymes. Brett Candlish Mil

      4 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2023

      There was a family of deer that looked something like us.They traveled far with a fierce sense of collective unity.Held their fearless faces absent of cosmic worry, for the most part.And yet something crept in, making the easiest partof being togethe

      9 min read

    • Article

      From The Feeling Sonnets

      Mar 1, 2022

      15. If Errato is the muse of poetry, who is the muse of music.No muse is the muse of music. Any muse is the muse of music.A muse is she musing about her meaning with music.Take meaning away from musing and all that remains is music.It is the music th

      3 min read

    • Article

      What Living In A House Is Like

      May 1, 2022

      Standing in each stanza—no, I’m sorry—room. Standing in each room waslike standing in a tester stroke of wall paint. All these blobs of colors in rows and columns, the size of thumbs.Together—a portrait of potential. But blues leaped to yellow leaped

      1 min read

    • Article

      Reconsidering Pablo Neruda in Light of ‘The Poet’s Calling’

      Jun 4, 2018

      When Pablo Neruda was expelled from France in 1952, he wrote this to his beloved countrymen in Chile: “The future of humanity may be endangered in the hands of a few evil men, but it does not belong to them. The future of man is ours, because we are

      4 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      Moon river, swollen river, river of starholeand bright, harness river, lichen river,river we velvet with our filth.River of butter and river of witches, rivercracked open careful like egg, or burstapart, unleashing its violet load.River mouths, river

      2 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      The painting is of a door, its wood so warpedwith moisture it cannot close. It stays ajar leaving a sliver of light—enough to suggestsomething sweet and almost unreachable behind the door—and you sit in yourroom working on the bills or those comforti

      4 min read

    • Article

      Rot

      Sep 2, 2022

      Rot
      1 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Steal Away

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Steal Away - C.D. Wright

      [image: cover][image: cover]

      Note to the Reader

      Copper Canyon Press encourages you to calibrate your settings by using the line of characters below, which optimizes the line length and character size:

      Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Pellentesque

      Please take the time to adjust the size of the text on your viewer so that the line of characters above appears on one line, if possible.

      When this text appears on one line on your device, the resulting settings will most accurately reproduce the layout of the text on the page and the line length intended by the author. Viewing the title at a higher than optimal text size or on a device too small to accommodate the lines in the text will cause the reading experience to be altered considerably; single lines of some poems will be displayed as multiple lines of text. If this occurs, the turn of the line will be marked with a shallow indent.

      Thank you. We hope you enjoy these poems.

      This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.

      For enduring friends from the Memphis years:

      Steve Allen, Barbara Barg, Chris Ellis, George Caldwell III, Toni Caldwell Hall, Stephen Kaplan, Steve Stern, and Margaret Vittitow

      In memory of

      Michael Phillip Maxwell, October 5, 1949–May 9, 1998.

      Contents

      Title Page

      Note to Reader

      THE ROSESUCKER RETABLOS

      Rosesucker Retablo #1

      Rosesucker Retablo #2

      Rosesucker Retablo #3

      from TRANSLATIONS OF THE GOSPEL BACK INTO TONGUES (1982)

      Alla Breve Loving

      The Secret Life of Musical Instruments

      Bent Tones

      Tours

      Blazes

      Libretto

      Clockmaker with Bad Eyes

      Obedience of the Corpse

      The night before the sentence is carried out

      Vanish

      Wanderer in His Thirtieth Year

      THE HANDFISHING RETABLOS

      Handfishing Retablo #1

      Handfishing Retablo #2

      Handfishing Retablo #3

      Handfishing Retablo #4

      from FURTHER ADVENTURES WITH YOU (1986)

      Wages of Love

      Provinces

      Treatment

      The Cinematographer’s Fårö Island Log

      Hotels

      Elements of Night

      Lapse

      Scratch Music

      Illuminations

      This Couple

      Petition for Replenishment

      Two Hearts in a Forest

      Further Adventures with You

      THE FLOATING LADY RETABLOS

      Floating Lady Retablo #1

      Floating Lady Retablo #2

      Floating Lady Retablo #3

      from STRING LIGHT (1991)

      King’s Daughters, Home for Unwed Mothers, 1948

      More Blues and the Abstract Truth

      Remarks on Color

      The Night I Met Little Floyd

      Why Ralph Refuses to Dance

      Our Dust

      Humidity

      The Body’s Temperature at Rest

      Personals

      Planks

      Utopia

      Toward the Woods

      What No One Could Have Told Them

      Detail from What No One Could Have Told Them

      Old Man with a Dog

      Living

      Weekend in the Country

      The Next to Last Draft

      Self Portrait on a Rocky Mount

      The Ozark Odes

      JUST WHISTLE

      a valentine (1993)

      TREMBLE (1996)

      Floating Trees

      Approximately Forever

      So Far Off and Yet Here

      Like Peaches

      With Grass as Their Witness

      Because Fulfillment Awaits

      Autographs

      And It Came to Pass

      Girl Friend

      Sonic Relations

      Various Positions

      The Shepherd of Resumed Desire

      Oneness

      Gift of the Book

      Girl Friend Poem #2

      A Series of Actions

      Song of the Gourd

      Lake Echo, Dear

      On the Beach

      What Keeps

      Key Episodes from an Earthly Life

      Girl Friend Poem #3

      In a Piercing and Sucking Species

      Crescent

      Everything Good between Men and Women

      Girl Friend Poem #4

      The Iris Admits the Light the Iris Will Allow

      Like Someone Driving to Texas by Herself

      Morning Star

      Like Rocks

      Privacy

      Girl Friend Poem #5

      Ponds, in Love

      Like Horses

      Flame

      Girl Friend Poem #6

      Girl Friends #7-10

      from DEEPSTEP COME SHINING (1998)

      from ONE BIG SELF

      Prisoners of Louisiana (2002)

      Index

      About the Author

      Books by C.D. Wright

      Links

      Acknowledgments

      Copyright

      Special Thanks

      THE ROSESUCKER RETABLOS

      ROSESUCKER RETABLO #1

      Though it be the season          of falling men

      Presaged by crop circles

      And compact moving masses

      Long dresses made all the more dolorous by dark umbrellas

      From these very fingers emerge          pistols of love

      Lilies of forgiveness

      And as you enter the eye          in this palm

      Chuparosa          bind me          to your secrecy

      Open your munificent purse          hoard me

      RETABLO DEL CHUPAROSA #1

      Aunque sea la estación          de los hombres caídos

      Presagiada por los círculos del grano

      Y las masas compactas en movimiento

      Los vestidos largos aún más dolorosos por los paraguas negros

      De estos mismos dedos surgen          pistolas de amor

      Lirios de perdón

      Y conforme entras en el ojo          en esta palma

      Chuparosa         átame          a lo que guardas en secreto

      Abre tu bolso munífico          abárcame

      ROSESUCKER RETABLO #2

      And though my birds be torn          to rags of smoke

      And I into a nexus          of feather and ash

      You must move ahead          unencumbered

      By melancholy or defects

      Behold the woman          Chuparosa

      May you never endure a week

      Without letters from an inmate

      Never the day without apples or bread

      Come in          from distant penetralia          blasted immaculacy

      RETABLO DEL CHUPAROSA #2

      Y a pesar de que mis pájaros se vuelvan          jirones de humo

      Y yo el nexo          entre la pluma y la ceniza

      Debes proseguir          sin el peso de

      La melancolía o los defectos

      Observa a la mujer          Chuparosa

      Que nunca sobrevivas una semana

      Sin las cartas de un encarcelado

      Nunca el día en que no haya ni manzanas ni pan

      Entra          de distantes santuarios          pureza maculada

      ROSESUCKER RETABLO #3

      With a drink of lasting rain          I may be clean gone

      Hasta luego          I troth thee and thine          only ease in childbirth

      Only comfort in the dying          only thorns          to whip the legs

      Of the insolent daughters

      But because they are only roses

      There will be so very little pain

      For your part          Chuparosa          you must leave

      Everything exactly as it is          in order to remain

      Unpossessed and unforsaken          all the way to the end

      RETABLO DEL CHUPAROSA #3

      Con un trago de lluvia perdurable          tal vez me haya esfumado sin mengua

      Hasta luego          os doy mi palabra          nada más que sosiego en el parto

      Sólo comodidad en la muerte          sólo espinas          para fustigar las piernas

      De las hijas insolentes

      Pero sólo porque son rosas

      Habrá un ínfimo dolor

      En cuanto a ti          Chuparosa          debes dejar

      Todo exactamente como es          para quedar

      Unánime y probo          de aquí hasta el final

      traducción de Gabriel Bernal Granados

      from TRANSLATIONS OF THE GOSPEL

      BACK INTO TONGUES (1982)

      ALLA BREVE LOVING

      Three people drinking out of the bottle

      in the living room.

      A cold rain. Quiet as a mirror.

      One of the men

      stuffs his handkerchief in his coat,

      climbs the stairs with the girl.

      The other man is left sitting

      at the desk with the wine and the headache,

      turning an old Ellington side

      over in his mind. And over.

      He held her like a saxophone

      when she was his girl.

      Her tongue trembling at the reed.

      The man lying next to her now

      thinks of another woman.

      Her white breath idling

      before he drove off.

      He said something about a spell,

      watching the snow fall on her shoulders.

      The musician

      crawls back into his horn,

      ancient terrapin

      at the approach of the wheel.

      THE SECRET LIFE OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

      Between midnight and Reno

      the world borders on a dune.

      The bus does not stop.

      The boys in the band have their heads on the rest.

      They dream like so-and-sos.

      The woman smokes

      one after another.

      She is humming Strange Fruit.

      There is smoke in her clothes, her voice,

      but her hair never smells.

      She blows white petals off her lapel,

      tastes salt.

      It is a copacetic moon.

      The instruments do not sleep in their dark cribs.

      They keep cool, meditate.

      They have speech with strangers:

      Come all ye faithless

      young and crazy victims of love.

      Come the lowlife and the highborn

      all ye upside-down shitasses.

      Bring your own light.

      Come in. Be lost. Be still.

      If you miss us at home

      we’ll be on our way to the reckoning.

      for Claudia Burson

      BENT TONES

      There was a dance at the black school.

      In the shot houses people were busy.

      A woman washed her boy in a basin, sucking

      a cube of ice to get the cool.

      The sun drove a man in the ground like a stake.

      Before his short breath climbed the kitchen’s steps

      she skipped down the walk in a clean dress.

      Bad meat on the counter. In the sky, broken glass.

      When the local hit the trestle everything trembled—

      the trees she blew out of, the shiver owl,

      lights next door. With her

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1