There is this cave In the air behind my body That nobody is going to touch: A cloister, a silence Closing around a blossom of fire. When I stand upri…

- James Wright

It goes without saying that a fine short poem can have the resonance and depth of an entire novel.

- James Wright

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

- James Wright

Most of the pollution in the water already is dead animal and plant matter and building debris, ... good stagnant nursery for mosquitoes.

- James Wright

Poetry can keep life itself alive. You can endure almost anything as long as you can sing about it.

- James Wright

Look: I am nothing. I do not even have ashes to rub into my eyes.

- James Wright

In a pine tree,/ A few yards from my window sill,/ A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and/ down./ On a branch./ I laugh, as I see him …

- James Wright

I asked the Mesquite coach who he thought the best team in Mesquite is. He said they were about even.

- James Wright

I write abundantly. And then my next step is to struggle to reduce the ornament, to reduce the abundance-to prune the book, in other words, the way o…

- James Wright