Book Review – 40 Watts by C. D. Wright

I was first introduced to these poems in my M.F.A. program.

I think all of the residencies we had in my M.F.A. tended to be very poetry heavy in the required readings which I, personally, didn’t mind at all. Poetry soothes the soul and expands the mind and prepares the psyche for creative expression.

Our Holistic Writing reading packet included a few of Wright’s poems and I was struck by their simplicity, their honesty, their raw examination of different microcosms of every day life. I am a poet who tries to write about the seem microcosms, but I usually end up resorting to language that is cliche and tired. Wright’s poems are so beautifully written that even when the poems themselves capture things that seem mundane, they transform into something not mundane.

I tend to be very verbose in my writing and sometimes this gives the impression that I don’t trust either myself or my reader. Long poems aren’t inherently bad, but nor are they better or more powerful just because they’re long. So this book of poems helped me see that sometimes we generate poems and the rough draft is much longer than it needs to be. And sometimes one long poem can be revised and edited down into two or more.

The poems in this book are very short, taking up space on the page very minimally. And yet the emotions of these poems are enormous, almost overwhelming at times. The contrast expresses what it’s like feeling trapped in the mundanity of life while wrestling with huge emotions, goals, desires, and hopes.

I highly recommend this book.