Thank you, Josh.

Josh introduced me to Franz Wright. 

Today I read God’s Silence in one sitting.  It was like having a conversation with someone who opens his mouth only to have his soul sit on his lips.  I’m kind of exhausted.  but exalted. 

Franz would be proud.  In his poem “Poet’s Room in a Museum” he writes, “Poem in other words may or may not result from inspiration but must (in reader and author alike) produce it–”

I’ll let the pros review this book of poems.  I’ll only react:  Often in the beginning I was offended at Wright’s banality and pretended I could not identify with this recovering addict.  But as I kept reading, the moments of clarity (in, for instance, “The Hawk,” “The Heaven,” “Text & Commentary,” “Petition,” “The Walk,” “The Fire,” “Why is the Winter Light,” “A Successful Day (Fill in the Blank)”) created sublimities that I wanted to share. 

Just this morning, I had one of  those experiences at church in which the Infinite spoke to me.  But I sounded moronic trying to explain that experience to another person.  Wright deftly captures those soul-lifting moments and makes them contagious  in this collection of poems.