More on: Franz Wright

Three Poetry Collections Idiot Psalms by Scott Cairns (Paraclete Press, 2014) Seam by Tarfia Faizullah (Southern Illinois University Press, 2013) F by Franz Wright (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013)   IN THE LONG HISTORY of the poetry of religious devotion, one often encounters a guileless representation of the self in its attempts to relate to the divine. The…

A version of this essay was delivered at Boston University on November 1, 2007, at a lecture sponsored by the Luce Program in Scripture and Literary Arts in memory and honor of Amos Niven Wilder. THE LANGUAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT has been with me since childhood. The words of Jesus, specifically, are so familiar…

1. February 2, 2008: Learning the Rosary Birth is the first affliction but there is no birth. Birth is the beginning of endless affliction ending finally in dying but there is no death. This has never been explained to me in words, but mutilations. I watch you watching something from the window and smiling in…

Nehemiah is pacing the streets at first light examining the builders’ progress and picturing the work that lies ahead. He then gets out of bed, puts on his clothes, and leaves the house to pace the streets, gravely nodding in greeting at the first workmen as they begin to appear; he pauses, suppressing a smile,…

Each day, for years, it gets up at first light, lets the dove out and stands in the doorway looking at the soft blue Arkansas sky without waking. But never you mind, it will be packing its small suitcase soon, it will leave the keys dangling from the lock and set out at last. Across…

Each day I woke as it started to get dark, and the pain came. Month after month of this—who knows when I got well. With dawn, now, waking from the rampage of sleep, I am walking in the Lincoln woods. A single bird is loudly singing. And I walk here as I always have, as…