F

Synopsis

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, a haunting collection of poems, graced by his dark humor and wit as he assesses both the damage and the grace in our lives.

In these riveting poems, Wright declares, "I've said all that / I had to say. / In writing. / I signed my name. / It's death's move." As he faces his mortality, the poet finds a new elation and clarity on the page, handing over for our examination the flawed yet kneeling-in-gratitude self he has become. "F" stands both for Franz, the poet-speaker who represents all of us on our baffling lifelong journeys, and for the alphabet, the utility and sometimes brutality of our symbols. (It may be, he jokes grimly, his "grade in life.") From "Entries of the Cell," the long central poem that details the loneliness of the single soul, to short narrative prose poems and traditional lyrics, Wright revels in the compensatory power of language as he observes the daylight headlights following a hearse, or the wind, "blessing one by one the unlighted buds of the backbent peach tree's unnoticed return." He is at his best in this beautiful and startling collection.