{"product_id":"earlier-poems-of-franz-wright-isbn-9780375711466","title":"Earlier Poems of Franz Wright","description":"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” (\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e), 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.” —\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“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.” —\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eFranz Wright \u003c\/b\u003eis 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.\u003ci\u003ePoem with No Speaker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAre you looking\u003cbr\u003efor me? Ask that crow\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003erowing\u003cbr\u003eacross the green wheat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSee those minute air bubbles\u003cbr\u003erising to the surface\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eat the still creek's edge—\u003cbr\u003etalk to the crawdad.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInquire\u003cbr\u003eof the skinny mosquito\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eon your wall\u003cbr\u003estinging its shadow,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethis lock\u003cbr\u003eof moon\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003elifting\u003cbr\u003ethe hair on your neck.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the hearts in the cocoon\u003cbr\u003estart to beat,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eand the spider begins\u003cbr\u003eits hidden task,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eand the seed sends its initial\u003cbr\u003epale hairlike root to drink,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eyou'll have to get down on all fours\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eto learn my new address:\u003cbr\u003eyou'll have to place your skull\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ebesides this silence\u003cbr\u003eno one hears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eEntry in an Unknown Hand\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd still nothing happens.  I am not arrested.\u003cbr\u003eBy some inexplicable oversight\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003enobody jeers when I walk down the street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have been allowed to go on living in this\u003cbr\u003eroom.  I am not asked to explain my presence\u003cbr\u003eanywhere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat posthypnotic suggestions were made; and\u003cbr\u003eare any left unexecuted?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy am I so distressed at the thought of taking\u003cbr\u003ecertain jobs?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey are absolutely shameless at the bank—\u003cbr\u003eyou'd think my name meant nothing to them.  Non-\u003cbr\u003echalantly they hand me the sum I've requested,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ebut I know them.  It's like this everywhere—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethey think they are going to surprise me: I,\u003cbr\u003ewho do nothing but wait,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce I answered the phone, and the caller hung up—\u003cbr\u003every clever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey think they can scare me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am always scared.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd how much courage it requires to get up in the\u003cbr\u003emorning and dress yourself.  Nobody congratulates\u003cbr\u003eyou!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt no point in the day may I fall to my knees and\u003cbr\u003erefuse to go on, it's not done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI go on\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003edodging cars that jump the curb to crush my hip,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eaccompanied by abrupt bursts of black-and-white\u003cbr\u003elaughter and applause,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003epast a million unlighted windows, peered out at\u003cbr\u003eby the retired and their aged attack dogs—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003etoward my place,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe one at the end of the counter,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe scalpel on the napkin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLament\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI took a long walk\u003cbr\u003ethat night in the rain.\u003cbr\u003eIt was fine.\u003cbr\u003eBareheaded, shirt open: in love\u003cbr\u003enobody gives a shit about the rain.\u003cbr\u003eI suddenly realized that I would hitchhike\u003cbr\u003ethe 60 or so miles into Kent—\u003cbr\u003eit was so late\u003cbr\u003eI could make it by dawn,\u003cbr\u003eand see the leaf-light in late April\u003cbr\u003ecalled your eyes.  The evil\u003cbr\u003ewe would do\u003cbr\u003ehad not yet come.  No one but me\u003cbr\u003eknows what you were at that time, with\u003cbr\u003ea loveliness to make men cry\u003cbr\u003eout, haunting beyond beauty.\u003cbr\u003eWe had what everyone is dying\u003cbr\u003efor lack of, and let it\u003cbr\u003efinally just slip away.\u003cbr\u003eI will never understand this.\u003cbr\u003eI was at the time a relatively intelligent\u003cbr\u003eperson.  Only\u003cbr\u003eterrorstricken already\u003cbr\u003eat what my life would be—that what I longed for most\u003cbr\u003ewould be exactly what I'd get\u003cbr\u003eat the price, sooner or later, little by little,\u003cbr\u003eof everything else,\u003cbr\u003eevery last fucking thing.\u003cbr\u003eYet that morning exists, it must,\u003cbr\u003eit happened.  And the years we had—\u003cbr\u003ethose almost endless summer afternoons and nights,\u003cbr\u003ea solitary hawk sleeping on the wind, your\u003cbr\u003eincandescent whiteness emerging from the water\u003cbr\u003ein the moon, or snow\u003cbr\u003ebeginning, horizontally, to fall as you fall\u003cbr\u003easleep with your head on my shoulder while I drive...\u003cbr\u003ewhere are they?  They exist, the way the world will\u003cbr\u003ewhen I'm dead.  I won't be there\u003cbr\u003ebut another nineteen-year-old idiot will be\u003cbr\u003eand to him I say: Don't do it!\u003cbr\u003eBut he will—blinded, spellbound, destroyed\u003cbr\u003eby the search for something\u003cbr\u003ehe can never see or touch,\u003cbr\u003ewhen all the while he holds it in his arms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eEnding\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's one of those evenings\u003cbr\u003ewe all know\u003cbr\u003efrom somewhere.  It might be\u003cbr\u003ethe last summery day—\u003cbr\u003eyou feel called on to leave what you're doing\u003cbr\u003eand go for a walk by yourself.\u003cbr\u003eYour few vacant streetes are the world.\u003cbr\u003eAnd you might be a six-year-old child\u003cbr\u003ewho's finally been allowed\u003cbr\u003eby his elders to enter a game\u003cbr\u003eof hide-and-seek in progress.\u003cbr\u003eIt's getting darker fast,\u003cbr\u003eand he's not supposed to be out;\u003cbr\u003ebut he gleefully runs off, concealing himself\u003cbr\u003ewith his back to a tree\u003cbr\u003ethat sways high overhead\u003cbr\u003eamong the first couple of stars.\u003cbr\u003eHe keeps dead still, barely breathing for pleasure\u003cbr\u003elong after they all have left.","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302169333989,"sku":"NP9780375711466","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375711466.jpg?v=1767725795","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/earlier-poems-of-franz-wright-isbn-9780375711466","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}