Charles Wright is anything but a literalist in … China Trace, though such has not always been the case. Wright has progressed steadily away from clarity and directness in favor of an ever more personal, more private utterance…. The poems in Wright's first book, The Grave of the Right Hand, have the polished clarity one would expect from a master of the plain style. They are obviously meant to speak to the reader, to communicate something he can share. Among the best is "To a Friend Who Wished Always to Be Alone."… This is beautifully written—the pacing and the pauses, the images and the sounds, everything contributes to the quiet, wry effectiveness of this elegy.

Lyricism is still present in China Trace, but the clarity is long since gone, having been finally put to rest in Bloodlines. Various areas of the … volume reveal certain obsessive concerns, and there...