SOURCE: “Another Shore,” in Poetry, Vol. CLVII, No. 6, March, 1991, pp. 343-54.

In the following essay, Howard reviews Wright's Complete Poems and a volume of critical essays about Wright, and concludes that Wright triumphs over his work's shortcomings because his best works show “imagistic luminosity, melodic purity, and emotional clarity.”

Elegist, visionary, and bitter social critic, the late James Wright remains a vivid presence in contemporary American poetry. As Donald Hall remarks in introducing this definitive edition of Wright's poems, few American poets have been the subject of so many elegies. Few have been more revered—or more shamelessly imitated. The concurrent appearance of Peter Stitt's critical anthology, which includes astute appreciations by Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky, William Matthews, and other fellow poets, attests to Wright's continuing influence, both as a technical innovator and as a model of integrity and compassion. Together, these volumes prompt a reassessment of a...