God's Silence

In this luminous new collection of poems, Franz Wright expands on the spiritual joy he found in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Walking to Marthas Vineyard. Wright, whom we know as a poet of exquisite miniatures, opens Gods Silence with “East Boston, 1996,” a powerful long poem that looks back at the darker moments in the formation of his sensibility. He shares his private rules for bus riding (“No eye contact: the eyes of the terrified / terrify”), and recalls, among other experiences, his first encounter with a shotgun, as an eight-year-old boy (“In a clearing in the cornstalks . . . it was suggested / that I fire / on that muttering family of crows”). Throughout this volume, Wright continues his penetrating study of his own and our collective soul. He reaches a new level of acceptance as he intones the paradox “I have heard Gods silence like the sun,” and marvels at our presumptions:

We speak of Heaven who have not yet accomplished

even this, the holiness of things

precisely as they are, and never will!

Though Wright often seeks forgiveness in these poems, his black wit and self-deprecation are reliably present, and he delights in reminding us that “literature will lose, sunlight will win, dont worry.”

But in this book, literature wins as well. Gods Silence is a deeply felt celebration of what poetry (and its silences) can do for us.

"Wright's Walking to Martha's Vineyard won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize; this book offers more agonic short poems on struggles with addiction and pain, but from a perspective much closer to faith than despair. Extended pieces like 'East Boston, 1996' arrive at brutal truths ('the eyes of the terrified/ terrify') and miniature lyrics such as 'The Choice' ('God can do what is impossible, but / God can only do what is impossible') seem to project upward in spiritual longing. In an Icarian approach to the light, Wright weaves a doubt-tinged refrain — 'I have heard God's silence like the sun' — through poem after poem; pieces such as 'On the Death of a Cat' ('Dear Stealth / of innocence....') compete with more inspired passages. And as with Walking, the poet's father, mid-century poet James Wright, looms large, as absence and as towering presence. Although there are serious dips in the road here, the best poems offer hope and compassion, and embrace the contradictions they present: 'Proved faithless, still I wait.' (Mar.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

In this radiant new collection, poet Franz Wright expands on the spiritual joy he conveyed in his Pulitzer Prize-winning "Walking to Martha's Vineyard."

Franz Wright was born in Vienna in 1953 and grew up in the Northwest, the Midwest, and Northern California. His most recent works include Ill Lit: Selected & New Poems, The Beforelife (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), and Walking to Marthas Vineyard (which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry). He has been the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Fellowship, and the PEN/Voelcker Prize, among other honors. He lives in Waltham, Massachusetts, with his wife, the translator and writer Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright.