Time Out New York may have said it best with, “These are the supplications of a man who has already been forgiven and is still astonished by the grace that allowed him to survive his sins.”

              Another way of looking at it, metaphorically, would be to picture Franz Wright as a man who’s haunted by someone he used to be.  In person, if a stranger congratulated him on winning the Pulitzer Prize, Wright would probably gesture the comment aside, perhaps even declaring the Prize a popularity contest.  Mind you, if you threw him into Google, he’s one of the leading poets of his generation.  But he’d probably look at the ground, drag his toe and disagree.

              And he’s haunted.  As much as it wouldn’t fit the previous description, this is a man who has engaged in fairly vitriolic flamewars with Poetry magazine.  It’s a valuable lesson on how the inner life, the powerful flights of imagination that govern a creative mind, can shock someone who might meet the person in the flesh.  Franz Wright is a grief counselor.  It’s also a lesson worth remembering that even Pulitzer Prize winning poets have day jobs.  And it’s evidence that he is the decent sort who would humbly scoff at the acclaim his work has garnered.

              But now let’s look at the words themselves.

              It doesn’t do them justice to excerpt a stanza or turn of phrase to show how good Franz Wright is.  From the “horror poetry” perspective, it’s best to remind that he’s a fair and decent person with a bent mind.  The grace and kindness that he carries in his life (he mostly counsels grieving teens and children) is as real as the dark fire that crackles within him.  His work is utterly magnificent.

              No, it’s not splatterpunk, but he won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for a reason.

              Fine, here’s an excerpt after all (from “Slip,” page 31) – the first stanza is:

                            The black balloon

                            tied to her wrist again, thin hand

                            floating

                            an inch above the white

                            white sheet

              And the last line is:

                            Night just the shadow of her hell

All told, Franz Wright’s work is the kind that communicates truths that don’t fit in novels or movies or comic books.  His work is why poetry exists and it’s flawless; a winged joy for any poetry lover.  And he’s haunted.

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