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April 24, 2004
"Auto-Lullaby," Franz Wright
by Ron HoganThink of a sheep
knitting a sweater;
think of your life
getting better and better.
Think of your cat
asleep in a tree;
think of that spot
where you once skinned your knee.
Think of a bird
that stands in your palm.
Try to remember
the Twenty-first Psalm.
Think of a big pink horse
galloping south;
think of a fly, and
close your mouth.
If you feel thirsty,
then drink from your cup.
The birds will keep singing
until they wake up.
From Walking to Martha's Vineyard, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer for poetry. Elizabeth Lund reviews the collection for The Christian Science Monitor. Hear Wright read from his poems on NPR's Weekend Edition.
Julia Keller for the Chicago Tribune and Dinitia Smith for the New York Times both wrote recently about Wright, described in a New Yorker interview a while back as a "poet's poet." He is a frequent contributor to Ploughshares. (See also four poems published by Typo.) Both profiles play up the family angle--Wright's father, James, also won a Pulitzer for his poems--though Smith probes a little deeper into Franz's personal life than Keller with (consequently) less to say about James.
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