Pulling together shards of life by trusting the music of the earth that rushes over his skull, William Wright s lush poems in Night Field Anecdote look closely at the physical world and its cycles. In poem after poem, his ear becomes an oar heaving toward birdsong and the day s first wind. Written by a curious and engaged mind that gathers images and events by association, these poems are life affirming because they link the human to the larger natural world. Weaving light into rhythm and image, Wright teaches us that suffering in the world must be acknowledged and explored in order to find the pleasure, the joy that brings the hope necessary for loving.