Publications
Sandstone Monastery, poetry, 2004
Openings, book of selected poetry and prose, 1979
Jericho, novel, 1977
Response to Anson Wright's novel, Jericho
"I liked the bottom of the sea level of your writing. Don't worry about discipline or guidance."
Anais Nin
"Jericho is a towering novel that holds an important place in the pantheon of American letters ... a masterful and transformative work."
Michael Coffin, former CEO of Informed Publishing
"Jericho is a dazzling, perturbing, even a dangerous book. To read it is to risk the tumbling down of your own walls. When Anson Wright receives the recognition he deserves, Jericho will be sought after as a collector's item."
Howard Waskow, Ph.D., former Associate Professor of Literature and Humanities, Reed College. Author of Whitman: Explorations in Form, and Becoming Brothers (co-authored by Arthur Waskow).
"This book is a masterpiece. Originally published nearly forty years ago, Anson Wright has produced a book that is at once challenging, profound and hilarious. A tale of interweaving consciousness' told by two brothers about incidents in their lives, enjoyably dosed with magical realism. The author invites us to revisit the paradoxes of intimate relationships, sibship and family loyalties never allowing us settle into a simple or singular viewpoint. He keeps us and his characters moving, leaves us with more questions than conclusions, yet strangely satisfied. I was fascinated and engaged throughout this book."
Robert Garfield, M.D.
Author of
Breaking the Male Code
"A personal but familiar religious inquisition underlies Jericho, a desire to be rid of sticky psychic heresies that corrupt the practice of being. The book's images enter a reader's dreams, they illuminate and fracture the machineries of sleep, they rearrange vision in the way cubism does . . . "
Steve Engel in Portland Scribe
"In writing Jericho, Anson Wright has crafted an emotional experience, a piece of art. Jericho is an evocative, mesmerizing, hypnogogic masterpiece. Each page is saturated with imagery and emotion. It's dream-like quality invites us into a series of unfolding experiences that engage the reader on multiple levels simultaneously. It is rare indeed to be moved by a literary work of such imagery, like a painting that is saturated in colors. Jericho is a wild ride. I strongly encourage others to experience it for themselves."
Rick Johnson, Ph.D.
Author of Conation
"This book isn't science fiction, it isn't humor, it isn't a Western or even a novel in the stock sense. What it is is magic . . . Jericho is vibrant with cosmic sleights-of-hand and anecdotes that reach new nerve endings."
Cecelia Hagen in Willamette Valley Observer
Response to Sandstone Monastery
"Anson Wright is a quintessential poet. His poems take the reader beyond the quarto of the cardinal directions into a fifth dimension ..."
Djelal Kadir, The Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University
"Demonstrating a true mastery of memorable word imaging drawn from elements, experiences, and insights with respect to his personal life, Sandstone Monastery showcases the enthusiastically recommended poetry of jazz guitarist and novelist Anson Wright."
Midwest Book Review
"Sandstone Monastery is a lovely and loving book. The poems use the particulars of the poet's life to touch the threads that unite us all, the invisible structures that support the visible world. The yearning for the sacred permeates the pages."
Paul Pines
Author of Adrift on Blinding Light
"Wright's offerings reflect mystery and life's unanswered questions in his collection, Sandstone Monastery... Wright delivers personal and moving passages concerning family, love, spirit and the landscape of his beloved Chaco Canyon."
Beverly Close, the Oregonian