Littlefoot was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2007 and is structured as a single long poem in thirty-five numbered sections, each a self-contained meditation but all contributing to a cumulative effect — like a year’s journal kept by a contemplative. The title’s diminutive suggests both humility (the smallness of the individual life against the landscape) and tenderness (the nickname one might give a child, or oneself as a child).
The poem moves through the seasons — spring through winter and back again — recording what Wright sees from his house and yard in Charlottesville: the dogwood, the mockingbird, the Blue Ridge in various lights, the stars, the weather. But each observation is a starting point for reflection on the largest questions: what it means to grow old, whether consciousness survives death, whether language can capture anything of the world’s reality, whether the beauty of nature constitutes a kind of meaning or merely a beautiful indifference.
Littlefoot represents something new in Wright’s work: the sustained long poem. His earlier collections had been sequences of individual poems; here the entire book is a single organism, each section depending on what precedes it and preparing for what follows. The effect is of a musical composition — a set of variations on a limited number of themes, each variation revealing something new.
First edition (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2007): Trade paperback with French flaps.
Market values:
- First printing: $10–$25
- Signed copies: $30–$75