Sestets is the nineteenth book from one of the country's most
acclaimed poets, a masterpiece of formal rigor and a profound meditation
on nature and mortality. It is yet another virtuosic showcase for
Charles Wright's acclaimed descriptive powers, and also an inquiry into
the nature of description itself, both seductive and dangerous: a
virtual world/ Unfit for the virtuous. Like his previous books,
Sestets is seeded with the lyrics of old love songs and spirituals,
and there is always room to connect his highly polished poems to the
world where most of us lead mundane lives (Miami Herald). Soaring and
earthy, lyrical and direct, Charles Wright is an American treasure, and
his search for a truth that transcends change and death settles finally
on the beauties of nature and language: Time is a graceless enemy, but
purls as it comes and goes.