Jay Wright is a poet, playwright, and essayist. His books include Transfigurations: Collected Poems, The Prime Anniversary, and The Dramatic Radiance of Number. His many awards include the Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, and a MacArthur Fellowship.
A collection of new and startlingly original essays from an acclaimed poet, essayist, and playwright
Jay Wright is widely recognized as one of the most important American poets of the past half century. But in recent years, he has also written a series of unconventional essays that he calls "examination papers," which he defines as "designated inquiries to myself." In these linked essays, most of which resemble prose-poems, with only a few lines set on each page, Wright explores abiding artistic and philosophical concerns, including language, aesthetic form, knowledge, time, and death. Soul and Substance presents these pieces for the first time.
Drawing on everything from African mythology to mathematical axioms, Wright reflects on a wide range of topics: the difficulties of defining and confronting death; the challenge of transcending one's own consciousness; the nature of rhythm and the structure of space; and the relationship among the self, the body, and the material world. Throughout, the book examines the limits of human knowledge and the implications of our always imperfect understanding.
Experimental and original, Soul and Substance is an important addition to the work of a major writer. "An incredibly beautiful volume."---Matthew Goulish, EcoTheo Review "Soul and Substance is the summation of Jay Wright's life-long pursuit of the meaning of our creativity in light of our mortality and the uncertainties revealed by quantum physics. Drawing on a truly global range of influences, from medieval mystics to contemporary African moral philosophers to recent historians of science, Wright has created a book of profound and entangled questions. He invites his reader to follow slowly and in conversation as each essay opens to the others. Nothing less than a philosophy for our times, his book is a vital contribution to contemporary poetics and will serve as a touchstone for future generations."-Susan Stewart, author of The Poet's Freedom
