The Pulitzer Prize winnerrsquo;s final written work: poems of penetrating acceptance and humor, whose soul-sweeping gaze encompasses his own autobiography and the broken world he nonetheless gives thanks for ldquo;His hands strip poetry to its nub.rdquo; mdash;Los Angeles Timesldquo;Reading [Wright] is like walking through a plate-glass window on purpose. . . . The shattering sound you heard was your own heart breaking.rdquo; mdash;Chicago Tribuneldquo;My death is in the second drawer,rdquo; writes Franz Wright. ldquo;While yoursquo;re standing there, would you mind getting me one?rdquo; It is a thrill to be back in these cadences, in his world of exquisite solitude, as he ponders becoming a ghost and returning to a childhood room where, he says, ldquo;I wonrsquo;t have written any of it. / I will have back the rights / of anonymity,rdquo; and there is nothing left that anyone can take from him.Wrightrsquo;s significant themes shine forth: radical acceptance of his own pain, mental illness, and loss; his belief in the poemrsquo;s ability to rhyme with the mysteries of our worldly suffering; his nearly surreal vision of Christian grace. But most powerful for readers will be the tender force of his imagerymdash;the ldquo;green vesperal rain at the screen,rdquo; the ldquo;long Jeffersonian / $2-bill- / tinted twilightrdquo;mdash;and, as he invites us to join him in his nicatorium, the smoking-porch of recovering addicts, the joy of finding this black-humorous voice still alive on the page to meet us.
