Ohioana Nonfiction Book Award: 2006
Anne Wright and Saundra Rose Maley, editors of
A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2005
James and Annie Wright were married in 1967, the same year that Wright’s poetry collection, Shall We Gather at the River
—which some have called his most impressive work—was published. Since Wright’s death, Annie has dedicated herself to
preserving the legacy of the poet from Martins Ferry, Ohio, shepherding such books as Above the River: The Collected Poems of James Wright
and James Wright: Collected Prose through to publication.
Annie’s co-editor, Saundra Rose Maley, is a poet, Wright scholar, and an adjunct professor in the Washington, DC, area.
A Wild Perfection is a significant addition to Wright’s work and an important chronicle of the changes taking place
in poetry during the mid-20th century. It is the second book by Wright to receive an Ohioana Award; his
St. Judas won the Ohioana Book Award for Poetry in 1960.
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