"Since the early 1980s, Wright has increasingly abandoned short lyrics for journal poems that weave diverse thematic threads into a single autobiographical fabric. . . . [He] is at liberty to spin out extended meditations that pick up, work with, lay aside, and return again to landscapes, historical events, and ideas. . . . Wright's gift for verbal music, his ability to evoke sensory experience and a boldness of metaphorical reference get the juices flowing. . . . [The World of the Ten Thousand Things is] a single poetic sequence worthy of comparison with such extended works as The Bridge by Hart Crane, The Far Field by Theodore Roethke, and Dream Songs by John Berryman. . . . [Wright is] a poet of great purity and originality." --Richard Tillinghast, The New York Times Book Review

"There is no poet of his generation whose career has unfolded with such genuine authority as Charles Wright's, or whom I read with more astonishment and gratitude. There is no book published this year I could recommend more highly." --J.D. McClatchy, Poetry