The Small Books of Bach is an offering of forty poems, each a spiritual
query, playful celebration, or serious riff on the music and life of J.
S. Bach. Divided into four books, the poems range from lyrical
investigations into Bach's life to surprising, irreverent meditations on
performances of the composer's work. While Bach lovers will enjoy the
references to his music and its reception, these energetic poems can
draw all readers into the composer's surprising life and spiritually
challenging music, a body of work with the potential to make readers
""want to dance or get right with a much better God / than they came
with, or the one they had planned to take home."" ""David Wright has
apprenticed himself to the greatest of masters--with the humility of the
student alert to the astonishments of point and counterpoint, our
aesthetic antipodes. Were you worried, you may be at peace. Here, in
these beautiful poems, in the poet's haunted hands, Bach springs
eternal."" --Alan Michael Parker, author of Love Song with Motor
Vehicles ""From a 'singed g-minor' in wartime to a 'Sestina for Bach's
Mama, ' Wright's Bach is an imaginative creation suited to the revival
tent and electric organ, feeling all along the 'hum and rhythm' present
in the syncopated experiences of art and belief."" --Brett Foster,
author of The Garbage Eater ""Here's the deal with this book: it's
funnier than you think it is. And it's sadder than it presents. And it's
far, far wiser than it sets out to be . . . Here is a book of private
absolutions made public, settled 'scores' (there's that Wrightian
wryness again), and ultimately, an elegiac lyric congregated around loss
and God. Don't be fooled--this isn't a book about Bach. It's a book
about the common crisis shared by every living, loving soul. It's a book
that sings longing's awful song."" --Jill Alexander Essbaum, author of
Heaven David Wright lives in Central Illinois and teaches creative
writing and American literature at Monmouth College. He is the author of
A Liturgy for Stones (2003). His poems have appeared in Image, Ecotone,
Hobart, Books & Culture, and many other publications.
