Earlier Poems of Franz Wright [Paperback]

The haunting collection of poems that gathers the first four books of Pulitzer winner Franz Wright under one cover, where “fans old and new will find a feast amid famine” (Publishers Weekly), and discover how large this poet’s gift was from the start.“[Wright’s] hard-won revelations seem subtle but are potently rousing. He achieves a level of balance between the unseen and seen, the lost and found, that, like Rilke’s simultaneous sense of ‘stone in you and star,’ is masterful to say the least.” —Booklist

“Wright propels his work forward with clear details, brutally forthright self-knowledge, and a sense of being lost in America familiar even to the most found of us.” —Chicago TribuneFranz Wright is the author of ten books of poetry. The recipient of numerous awards, including two National Endowment for the Arts grants and a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in Waltham, Massachusetts.Poem with No Speaker

Are you looking
for me? Ask that crow

rowing
across the green wheat.

See those minute air bubbles
rising to the surface

at the still creek's edge—
talk to the crawdad.

Inquire
of the skinny mosquito

on your wall
stinging its shadow,

this lock
of moon

lifting
the hair on your neck.

When the hearts in the cocoon
start to beat,

and the spider begins
its hidden task,

and the seed sends its initial
pale hairlike root to drink,

you'll have to get down on all fours

to learn my new addreslC0