Research Guides (LibGuides): Visiting Writers' Series LibGuide: Robert Wrigley

Robert Wrigley

More Information

PODCASTS

Robert Wrigley's New Collection, Beautiful Country
From The Write Question. Focuses on Wrigley's 2010 publication, Beautiful Country.
Finding more podcasts ...

INTERVIEWS

The Poet on the Poem: Robert Wrigley
An 2013 interview with Wrigley on his poem "Earthquake Light" from his book Anatomy of Meloncholy.
A Conversation with Robert Wrigley
An interview by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum in 2010.
The Earth, the Stars, and the Imagination: An Interview with Robert Wrigley
Interview done by Todd F. Davis with Wrigley in 2008. Published by Penn State University Press.
A Normal Interview with Robert Wrigley
By Jennifer Dean, published via The Normal School literary magazine. Discusses the 2013 released of Anatomy of Melancholy.

Many works by our Visiting Writers' Series authors are pulled from their normal places on the shelves and temporarily located in a special display in the Browsing Collection. This collection is located near the Information Commons service desk, next to the vending machines and newspapers.

When you look at an item's record in WorldCat Discovery, be sure to note whether the items is in the General Stacks (mostly 2nd floor) or the Browsing Collection (1st floor). If you have any questions about locating an item on the shelf, don't hesitate to ask us!

Remember - if we don't own it or our copy is currently checked out, you probably can still get a copy through PALShare or interlibrary loan! Learn more.

Anatomy of Melancholy and Other Poems by Robert Wrigley
Publication Date: 2013
"A powerful new collection from an award-winning poet Robert Wrigley has become one of his generation’s most accomplished poets, renowned for his irony, power, and lucid style and for his ability to fuse narrative and lyrical impulses. Like its namesake—Robert Burton’s seventeenth-century examination of human thoughts and emotions—Wrigley’s new collection means to examine our world through the lens of melancholia. From imagined war memorials to insomniac chickens; from Descartes’ lost daughter to a dreaming tree; from King Kong to Rush Limbaugh; and from Anna Karenina to a man named Lucy Doolin (short for Lucifer), these are poems that elegize and celebrate that most beautiful, exasperating, joyous, miserable, and perfectly imperfect of all creatures—the human being."
Beautiful Country by Robert Wrigley
Publication Date: 2010
"At the heart of Robert Wrigley’s new book are the fears that find us at the darkest times and the hopes we rise to each morning. These poems explore that point where the sacred and the profane come together, that place of beauty inside the grotesque and the grotesque inside what is beautiful. The laws of nature, the commandments of capitalism, and the rules of war are transformed into songs of longing, patriotism, and dissent; we are also reminded of the grace residing in the glimpse of a horse under a full moon or the preserved lock of a lover’s hair. Elegiac and lyrical, playful and angry, Beautiful Country offers a vision of a country that is unflinching, demanding, and generous."
Moon in a Mason Jar and What My Father Believed by Robert Wrigley
Publication Date: 1997
"Two of Wrigley's finest collections of poems are now together in one volume."
The Church of Omnivorous Light by Robert Wrigley
"Robert Wrigley is a poet of America's northern Rocky Mountains. Over three decades his poetry's pervading concerns have been rural Western landscapes and humankind's place within the natural world. His most recent poems have presented a portrait of a nation, one that is a singular part of a singular planet, with an exuberant and frequently exasperating culture. In such a country, the glimpse of a horse under a full moon can be a defining moment, full of grace and a new, if not always comfortable, awareness. So it is with a saved lock of a lover's hair, the memory of a vanished glacier, or a childhood friend disappeared in war. This selection is his first UK publication and covers work from nine collections, including Reign of Snakes, Lives of the Animals, Earthly Meditations and Beautiful Country. Elegiac and lyrical, playful and angry, The Church of Omnivorous Light offers a vision that is fierce, unflinching, and clear."--Page 4 of cover.

"Contributor of nearly three hundred poems to numerous anthologies, including Writing American, National Endowment for the Arts, 1997, The Viking Portable Western Reader; Scanning the Century, Penguin UK, and Vital Signs: Contemporary American Poetry from University Presses, and to more than eighty magazines and literary journals, including Atlantic Monthly, Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Poetry, April, Partisan Review, New Virginia Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Poetry Northwest.

Family: Born February 27, 1951, in East St. Louis, IL; son of A. W. and Betty Ann Fuetsch Wrigley; married Vana Berry, May 29, 1971 (divorced, December, 1981); married Kim Barnes (a writer), July 20, 1983; children: Philip, Jordan, Jace. Education: Southern Illinois University, B.A., 1974; University of Montana, M.F.A., 1976. Politics: "Progressive." Religion: "Poetry." Addresses: Home: R.R. 1, Box 98W4, Lenore, ID 83541. Office: Department of English, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-1102.

Robert Wrigley told CA: 'I write because I cannot not write. Poetry is not what I do but who I am. My influences include Bill Evans, James Dickey, Sylvia Plath, John Coltrane, John Keats, Walt Whitman--it never ends. My father and mother, Lenny Bruce, the Rev. Mr. K. Kuhlman, jazz, Bach, Stan Musial, Georgia O'Keefe, Basho, Sappho, Kels Mo, Dante. When I write I start with music. Make the words sing. Let the language take me where it will, deep inside. My subjects seem as likely to choose me as I them. Very often an image brings a word that rings or resonates, an unforeseen word. I follow it toward another--words like a mountain trail.'"

Source: "Robert Wrigley. Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: gale, 2002. Biography in Context. Web. 27 May 2016.

Poetry Foundation Biography: Robert Wrigley

Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete This link opens in a new window
The series provides information on authors and their works while placing writers in the larger perspective of literary history.

Literary Sources This link opens in a new window
Use the author's name or one of his primary texts in the search box to find reviews and criticism of his work.

Library Journal Book Review
Click on the Library Journal link (use the one that has more full texts available) to access it through the Butler library. Use the author's name as your search term in the "search within the publication" box to find reviews of his work.
New York Times Book Review
This link will take you to the New York Times Book Review hosted on the Literature Resource Center database. It includes issues from 2001 to present. You can search within the entire publication (box at top of page) or you can select a specific year from the drop-down menu. Older issues are available via other databases - ask a librarian for help accessing these issues.

Campus Visit

Poetry Readings

Want to hear Robert Wrigley read his own poetry? There's plenty of places online where you can find audio snippets. Here are a few we suggest:

The Writer's Almanac

The Poetry Foundation

Visiting Writers' Series LibGuide: Robert Wrigley

Robert Wrigley

More Information

Campus Visit

Poetry Readings

CONTACT

QUICK LINKS