Transfigurations

A poetry collection of epic scale and transformative vision from one of the most innovative American poets

For over half a century, Jay Wright’s poetry has been celebrated for its alertness to the multiplicity of human experience and identity, and championed by eminent literary figures from Carl Phillips to Harold Bloom.

The gravitational pull of Wright’s lyric voice transforms life into myth, body into spirit, image into icon, and ritual into collective consciousness. Revelling in the rich interplay between Native American, African American, Latin American and West African cultural forms, Wright disentangles the threads of these complex historical forces to present a tapestry of the Atlantic World and the people who move within it.

Published for the first time in the UK, Transfigurations is a career-defining volume that includes all of Wright’s twentieth century major poetry works- The Homecoming Singer (1971), Soothsayers and Omens (1976), Explications/Interpretations (1984), Dimensions of History (1976), The Double Invention of Komo (1980), Elaine’s Book (1988), Boleros (1991) and Transformations (1997).

Transfigurations is a singular opportunity for readers to fully immerse themselves in the sublime imagination of one of the most profound and enigmatic American poets.