Reviews
There are vast expanses of ordinary fabric, bejeweled by moments of existential clarity... Prunty holds everyday experience up to the light in such a way that it seems anything but. He has an exquisite hold on life.
A distinct and distinctive voice... best looked at not amongst his peers but in the light of an earlier generation of elegant formalists, from Anthony Hecht, Richard Wilbur, and James Merrill, to the less well-known Edgar Bowers and J. V. Cunningham.
Frostian stoicism and precise observation of sad American scenes distinguish the poems of Wyatt Prunty, whose careful technique sets him above most of the New Formalist poets who share his tastes.
There are vast expanses of ordinary fabric, bejeweled by moments of existential clarity... Prunty holds everyday experience up to the light in such a way that it seems anything but. He has an exquisite hold on life.
Wyatt Prunty's poems give a true sense and picture of American life of the last several decades, especially of life in the South.
Wyatt Prunty [writes] with wit, with narrative grace, and with modesty. His poems are wise and compassionate. He is a superb poet.
Unarmed and Dangerous—five earlier books and a batch of new poems—adds up to a solid body of distinctive work.
Wyatt Prunty is clearly a poet for all seasons.