ILL LIT: Selected & New Poems (Field Poetry Series)

Rating:
Summary: a poet of breathless experimentation
Review: Being son of the eminent James Wright, Franz has a lot looming over him. He responds to his world by fragmenting it into absolute terseness, collecting the shards of feeling & experience in a manner almost venomous but so tender. He writes with blindingly crisp ellipticism & manipulation of signifier & signified, traveling at speeds twice as fast as an omitted comma.

Rating:
Summary: one step removed from silence
Review: I've been following Wright's career for years and find his compelling work burrows into the heart of the self--the mind and heart that speaks to itself--like no other poet. His work is heartbreaking as well as desperately funny. And his ability to hauntingly capture a state of mind using a few scattered images is frightening and magical. No poet since Frank Stanford has startled and excited me this much. I will read every poem of his I can get my hands on.