Walking to Martha's Vineyard [Paperback]

Franz Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 5, 2005

In this radiant new collection, Franz Wright shares his regard for life in all its forms and his belief in the promise of blessing and renewal. As he watches the “Resurrection of the little apple tree outside / my window,” he shakes off his fear of mortality, concluding “what death . . . There is only / mine / or yours,– / but the world / will be filled with the living.” In prayerlike poems he invokes the one “who spoke the world / into being” and celebrates a dazzling universe–snowflakes descending at nightfall, the intense yellow petals of the September sunflower, the planet adrift in a blizzard of stars, the simple mystery of loving other people. As Wright overcomes a natural tendency toward loneliness and isolation, he gives voice to his hope for “the only animal that commits suicide,” and, to our deep pleasure, he arrives at a place of gratitude that is grounded in the earth and its moods.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Terse and consistent, Wright's 15th book (and second from Knopf) returns to the haunted territory of The Beforelife (2001) with a wider range of formal tools. Heartfelt but often cryptic poems, split into short, sometimes even single-line stanzas, explore the poet's troubled romantic life, his self-destructive past, his attraction to a Christian God and his difficult memories of his father-influential American poet James Wright (1927-1980). The younger Wright can deliver a lucid analogy in a single line ("We were/ about as useful as a hammer and nail made of gold"), or stop short in epistemological doubt: "The seeing see only this world." Some poems address James Wright directly ("At ten/ I turned you into a religion"); others take up, laconically and often powerfully, a history of substance abuse and mental illness: "Risperdal whisperdoll// all alone in the dark/ garden." "Letter" bluntly ties the speaker's Christian seeking to his sense of human loneliness: "I keep my eyes fixed on the great naked corpse, the vertical corpse/ who is said to be love/ and who spoke the world/ into being before coming here/ to be tortured and executed by it." Wright's work relies on the force of affect and personality, more than on any particular formal choice; his use of fragments can recall Jean Valentine or Donald Revell, while his psychological probing can call to mind Frank Bidart. His best work may be his least typical, as in the rhyming "Auto-Lullaby," but fans will find Wright's self-diagnostics moving throughout.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap

In this radiant new collection, Franz Wright shares his regard for life in all its forms and his belief in the promise of blessing and renewal. As he watches the ?Resurrection of the little apple tree outside / my window,? he shakes off his fear of mortality, concluding ?what death . . . There is only / mine / or yours,? / but the world / will be filled with the living.? In prayerlike poems he invokes the one ?who spoke the world / into being? and celebrates a dazzling universe?snowflakes descending at nightfall, the intense yellow petals of the September sunflower, the planet adrift in a blizzard of stars, the simple mystery of loving other people. As Wright overcomes a natural tendency toward loneliness and isolation, he gives voice to his hope for ?the only animal that commits suicide,? and, to our deep pleasure, he arrives at a place of gratitude that is grounded in the earth and its moods. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (April 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375710019
• ISBN-13: 978-0375710018
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.3 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #348,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Franz Wright's recent works include Earlier Poems, God's Silence, and The Beforelife (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize). In 2004 his Walking to Martha's Vineyard received the Pulitzer Prize. He has been the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Fellowship, and the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, among other honors. He currently lives in Waltham, Massachusetts, with his wife, the translator and writer Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great deal of natural talent, February 12, 2004

By 

Ilya V. Kaminsky (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Walking to Martha's Vineyard (Hardcover)

Franz Wright appears to have a great deal of natural talent, indeed. There's nothing bluff about the poems. The book is very memorable. The poems are direct, in a magical way. They aim for, and attain a clarity that saves us, gives us grace. One wants to call up one's friends and read the poems over the phone. They are that believable. Read the poem called "P.S." in the bookstore and you will want to buy this book. It is the book to be grateful for.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wright reaches the brink, April 12, 2005

By 

J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Walking to Martha's Vineyard (Hardcover)

After years of a sincere, horrendously painful search for an answer to the suffering of his own life, and by extension, the suffering of humanity as a whole, Franz Wright has finally found some peace of mind.

It actually does not surprise me that Wright has come to believe in God; his lifetime of inner hell, alienation, abuse and almost unnaturally intense dedication to his vocation as a poet leaves him no other outs. "If they'd stabbed me to death on the day I was born," Wright says, "it would have been an act of mercy," and yet on the same page affirms the majesty of the world with all its horror.

Any fan of Wright's work knows that he speaks with looming authority on the subject of rebellion against any metaphysical solution at all, which is why we can take this collection so seriously. He has gone so pathologically far into the hell of depression, drug abuse, and alcoholism that anyone with similar experiences will understand his need for an answer to what he has witnessed. Wright is the kind of poet who, even during the height of what he would term "the poet's lonely fame", would often find himself in mental hospitals, jails, and rehabs. Until now, neither literary recognition nor his talent have brought him any relief.

Wright's poetry has always spoken to addicts/alcoholics perhaps better than to anyone else, and his gratitude for still having his brain intact and still being alive at all is something we can all relate to: "Thank You for letting me live for a little as one of the sane; thank You for letting me know what this is like/Thank You for letting me look at your frightening blue sky without fear, and your terrible world without terror, and your loveless psychotic and hopelessly lost/with this love".

Suffice to say, Wright's poetry itself is uncompromising, apart from the radical change in attitude he is expressing. They are the kind of poems that, reading them aloud, produce a hushed silence of admiration and respect because they are so uncompromising. While there is very little in the way of "light" material in Wright's body of work, this comes the closest, and is a must for EVERYONE. This should be put on high school book lists.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Whisper These Great Poems, April 16, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Walking to Martha's Vineyard (Hardcover)

Some poems are meant to be read in a whisper, to be articulated internally, inside the mind's ear. What is lovely about Wright's poetry is its trust in the strength of old-fashion free verse, and its trust in a mature reader. In addition, it was a pleasure, for once, to read an open-hearted and honestly emotional book of poems. The fact that he is James Wright's son does add weight to the work, but who cares? In this case it just helps us to know the father who is being addressed, adding to our sense that he could be our father, too (at least for those of us who love the work of James Wright.)