~James Wright, Two Citizens (FSG, 1973)

          If you hang out around this site long enough, you’re going to notice the recurrence of one mister James Wright.  He has a certain charisma and subtle charm that is hard to find anywhere else in poetry, and it’s my pleasure to keep posting examples.

          ~TM

~James Wright, Shall We Gather at the River (Wesleyan, 1968)

Rodney Jones and I were talking about this poem the other day, and I told him how I’d lifted the image of “the red spider who is God” for my own purposes.  And so it goes in my poem: “Such was your grace.  I was nothing more than a tiny red spider tending to my own needs.”  It then occurred to me that if I were to draw a parallel between Wright’s spider and my own, my speaker has unwittingly become God (a tiny God filled with self-importance, but God nonetheless).  My speaker and I feel honored to be in positions of such eminent power.

          ~TM

          ~ James Wright, The Branch Will Not Break (1963)

Why this poem is beautiful needs no rationale.  Enjoy.

          ~T.M.