Franz Wright was recognized as one of the leading poets of his generation even before he won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. His voice and sensibility are distinctive, and the places he goes are ones where not many writers are able or willing to venture. The dark world of his poems, which face many of the hardest truths we must learn to live with, is lit by humor, tenderness, compassion, and honesty. For this edition, the poet has selected from the best of his previous collections, in some cases making substantial revisions, and has added his newest poems. The resulting collection is exciting in its breadth, consistency, depth, and distinction.
Table of Contents
FROM THE ONE WHOSE EYES OPEN WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES (1982) • Asking For My Younger Brother • Trespassing On 58 • In the Reading Room • The Earth Will Come Back From the Dead • Blood • Knife • Mosquitoes • Drinking Back • Initial • The Wish • The Visit • Morning • The Road • Brussels, 1971 • Poem With No Speaker • In Memory • FROM ENTRY IN AN UNKNOWN HAND (1989) • Untitled • Winter: Twilight & Dawn • Rooms • The Crawdad • Joseph Come Back As the Dusk • Quandary • To the Hawk • Audience • Alcohol • At the End of the Untraveled Road • Vermont Cemetery • Morning Arrives • North Country Entries • Birthday • The Note • The Talk • Ill Lit • Entry in an Unknown Hand • Duration • No Longer Or Not Yet • Look Into Its Eyes • The Day • Night Writing • There • Poem • A Day Comes • Three Discarded Fragments • The Street • My Work • Coordinates • Waiting Up • Guests • Winter Entries • Going North in Winter • FROM THE NIGHT WORLD AND THE WORD NIGHT (1993) • Illegibility • Occurrence • Pawtucket Postcards • Loneliness • Words • Gone • Certain Tall Buildings • August Insomnia • Jamais Vu • Night Said • The World • The Forties • Untitled • The Lovers • Untitled • Say My Name • For Martha • For A Friend Who Disappeared • Untitled • Time To Stop Keeping a Dream Journal • Midnight Postscript • The Winter Skyline Late • Clearlake Oaks (I) • Clearlake Oaks (II) • The Drunk • The Angel (I) • The Angel (II) • Theory • The Door • Thoughts of a Solitary Farmhouse • Tidepool: Elk, California • Untitled • Elegy: Breece D’J Pancake • The Spider • Bild, 1959 • Train Notes • FROM RORSCHACH TEST (1995) • Voice • Infant Sea Turtles • The Comedian • Heaven • One in the Afternoon • Beginning of November • The Meeting • Late Late Show • Heroin • Rorschach Test • Reunion • Depiction of Childhood • Night Watering • Planes • Untitled • The Family’s Windy Summer Night • The Leaves • Ending • The Mailman • The Blizzard • Mental Illness • Poem • The Face • The Lemon Grove • Van Gogh’s “Undergrowth With Two Figures” • Boy Leaving Home • TRANSLATIONS • Remembrance (Rainer Maria Rilke) • From the Notebook Fragments of Rainer Maria Rilke • The Rasing of Lazarus (Rainer Maria Rilke) • The Annunciation (Rainer Maria Rilke) • Pietà (Rainer Maria Rilke) • Quieting of Mary at the Resurrection (Rainer Maria Rilke) • The Sick Child (Rainer Maria Rilke) • Les Chercheuses De Poux (Arthur Rimbaud) • Grass Huts of the Vosges (René Char) • Fifteen-Year-Old Being Struck (René Char) • Whispered Ceremony (René Char) • Line of Faith (René Char) • Receiving Orion (René Char) • Poem (Ingeborg Bachmann) • The Singer (Guillaume Apollinaire) • NEW POEMS • Four O’ Clock • Child Rearing • Encounter 3 A.M. • The Shore • From a Roadside Motel • Night Browsing • After Celan • Autobiography • Reverie of the Life Cast • First Day on the Ward • Sunday Afternoon • Metaphor • A Body Describes Itself • Have You Seen This Child • The Wound • Patient Interaction • Failing • Getting Off Work • To Myself • Untitled • First Light • Acknolwedgments