One Big Self

By C.D. Wright

“Wright has found a way to wed fragments of an iconic America to a luminously strange idiom, eerie as a tin whistle, which she uses to evoke the haunted quality of our carnal existence.”—The New Yorker

Inspired by numerous visits inside Louisiana state prisons—where MacArthur Fellow C.D. Wright served as a “factotum” for a portrait photographer—One Big Self bears witness to incarcerated men and women and speaks to the psychic toll of protracted time passed in constricted space. It is a riveting mosaic of distinct voices, epistolary pieces, elements from a moralistic board game, road signage, prison data, inmate correspondence, and “counts” of things—from baby’s teeth to chigger bites:

Count your folding money
Count the times you said you wouldn’t go back
Count your debts
Count the roaches when the light comes on
Count your kids after the housefire

One Big Self—originally published as a large-format limited edition that featured photographs and text—was selected by The New York Times and The Village Voice as a notable book of the year. This edition features the poem exclusively.

C.D. Wright is the author of ten books of poetry, including several collaborations with photographer Deborah Luster. She is a professor at Brown University.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Release date: Jun 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781619321069

Book preview

[image: cover][image: cover]

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Thank you. We hope you enjoy these poems.

This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.

With lasting gratitude to Deborah Luster and to Jack Woody, and to the men and women of East Carroll Parish Prison Farm, Transylvania; Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, St. Gabriel; and Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola.

God was pleased by the good he did and we pray his mercy for the wrong

The lone epitaph at Point Lookout Cemetery, Angola. Released from prison, Charles C. Hawell died in January, nineteen and thirty-four, at thirty-four years of age, and as stipulated in his will was brought back inside for burial.

Contents

Title Page

Note to Reader

Stripe for Stripe

Count your fingers

Count heads.

I want to go home,

If I were you:

Beinvenu en Louisiane

My Dear Conflicted Reader,

On the road to Angola:

On the road to St. Gabriel:

On Privacy

On the Lessening of Free-World Ties

My Dear Affluent Reader,

Prepare to exit the forest

Dear Dying Town,

Dialing Dungeons for Dollars

Modern Times

Black Is the Color

Wednesdays were important for Faith

Why has the feld line started so late

Dear Unbidden, Unbred,

Mack trapped a spider

Dear night dear shade dear executioner

Dear Prisoner,

Poster, women’s prison:

Count your notches

First Memory

Why, good morning Miss Toliver, how are you

Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit

Come on down,

Leaving St. Gabriel:

Why does it take so goddamn long—

Just Another Day

Body Language

Dear Child of God,

Lines of Defense Including

Count her bruises and contusions

After the Housefire

Weapon of Opportunity

Enters a silence that never reverses itself

Dear Errant Kid,

Dear Virtual Lifer,

Your Honor,

No One No Body is Bad for Ever

Why not check it out and lock it down:

About the Author

Books by C.D. Wright

Links

Acknowledgments

Copyright

Special Thanks

Stripe for Stripe

Driving through this part of Louisiana you can pass four prisons in less than an hour. The spirit of every age, writes Eric Schlosser, is manifest in its public works. So this is who we are, the jailers, the jailed. This is the spirit of our age.

You won’t be back, will you? asked the inmate who told me he wanted to be a success.

Try to remember it the way it was. Try to remember what I wore when I visited the prisons. Trying to remember how tall was my boy then. What books was I teaching. Trying to remember how I hoped to add one true and lonely word to the host of