Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Originally released in 2003 as an expensive, limited-edition art book featuring photographs by Deborah Luster, Wright's poetic book-length meditation and report on life in three Louisiana prisons is now widely available for the first time. To portray the lives of those she met when she and Luster visited these prisons, Wright's method is accretion, her form the list. Registering a bevy of voices, from the poem's own twangy consciousness (The redhead here is a photographer and I'm her humble factotum) to prisoners' hopeless missives, Wright (Steal Away) attempts to report what she sees, like a journalist telling it slant. She includes stock-takings of things brought in from outside (Count your blessings// Count your stars (lucky or not)// Count your loose change), haunting prison factoids (Tennessee's retired chair available on eBay), possible quotes from prisoners (I've always had the willies) and poetic advice (Remember the almighty finger on the wrong-answer button). Piled one atop another, these verbal shards create a harrowing vamp that is as much a compassionate portrayal of prison life as it is about the fragmentary way anyone comes to know anyone else. Wright gets better with each book, expanding the reach of her art; it seems it could take in anything. (Mar.)(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
When photographer Deborah Luster toured prisons in Louisiana to photograph the inmates, poet Wright (Steal Away: Selected and New Poems) tagged along to provide a textual record of the experience. First published with Luster's stylized, sepia-toned portraits in a large-format hardcover in 2003, the poetry here stands on its own without the leading particularity of faces and poses, evoking an impressionistic, virtual environment where the walls have not only ears but tongues. Words of the prisoners ("The last time you was here I had a head full of bees") alternate with observations ("The men like The Young and the Restless") and recurring litanies of enumeration ("Count your debts/ Count the roaches when the light comes on"), while "letters" in the poet's voice ("Dear Unbidden, Unbread") provide respites of subjective commentary. The overall assemblage can at times feel inert, even distant, but when shards of physical authenticity find their complementary places in the poet's imaginative frame ("The septuagenarian murderer knits nonstop/ One way to wear out the clock"), the poem achieves concise, provocative complexities. Recommended for larger poetry collections.-Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
