It's not often I feature other's poetry here but Franz Wright's poem touched me. I've made a point of placing the entire page from the Knopf (e)mailing. I am hoping I am not breaking any copyright rules here. Every April Knopf publish a Poem-A-Day, in celebration of Poetry Month.
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A window onto the childhood of Franz Wright, who turned sixty last year and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for Walking to Martha's Vineyard. This poem appears in F, his newest collection.
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Learning to Read
If I had to look up every fifth or sixth word
so what. I looked them up.
I had nowhere important to be.
My father was unavailable, and my mother
looked like she was about to break,
and not into blossom, each time I spoke.
My favorite was The Iliad. True,
I had trouble pronouncing the names;
but when was I going to pronounce them, and
to whom?
My stepfather maybe?
Number one, he could barely speak English -
two, he had sufficient cause
to smirk or attack
without prompting from me.
Loneliness boredom and fear
my motivation
fiercely fueled.
I get down on my knees and thank God for them.
Du Fu, the Psalms, Whitman, Rilke.
Life has taught me
to understand books. |
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| Excerpt from F. Copyright (c) 2013 by Franz Wright. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, LLC., New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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