Thursday, April 15, 2004

Discovering Franz Wright's Feelings

There's an article in the NY Times about Franz Wright, the recent winner of the Pulitzer for Poetry. He's lived an amazing soap opera complete with famous father, abusive step-father, alcohol, depression, and much more. Yet at the same time his story is one of salvation (figuratively and literally.) I haven't read much of Franz Wright's poetry except for some works I found on-line after he won the Pulitzer. But the story is worth reading if only for its human interest, and this snippet from the famous lives of poets:
He grew up in a milieu of poets. John Berryman, another drunk, was a friend of his father's when they taught at the University of Minnesota. "That didn't help much with the alcoholism," Mr. Wright said. Theodore Roethke, a manic-depressive, jiggling his big belly, recited his children's poems to young Franz: "There Once was a cow with a Double Udder/When I think of it now, I just have to Shudder!"

Mr. Wright observed, "I thought that all adults were insane drunks and chain smokers."
And they're not?

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