BOOKS
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For at its best Wright's syntax sets off a depth charge of energy that
sets the words spinning before one's eyes. It's a trait reminiscent of Paul
Celan, and in fact
The Beforelife
contains a translation of a Celan poem.
But what is truly Celanesque about Wright's poems is the way in which
true feeling evolves
out of
words rather than seeming the obvious pre–
cursor to them. Here, for instance, is the end of "The Poem Said,"
III
which the poem addresses the poet:
love what I stand for
not me
the leopard the beautiful
death
who puts on his spotted robe when he goes
to
his chosen,
the
what was the not now the what will be
Like suddenly using a dead friend 's expression
Make yourself useful
while there is time
while there is still light and time
Interestingly enough, though Wright arrives here at essentially the same
call
to
embrace life expressed by Maxwell's protagonist, the stakes seem
much higher. This is not on ly because of the intensity of the experience
rendered, but also because of the intensity of our own experience in nav–
igating the "what was the not now the what will be" in order
to
arrive
back at the safety of "light and time." The irony, then, is that as much as
Wright may seem to bare his agony openly upon the page, it is our own
thought and feeling that is brought vivid ly alive through his poems.
This is no sma ll order
to
have achieved, especia ll y by a poet who
aspires to write a "Book composed of poems no one wi ll ever read
I
or
write, if I can help it" ("Bathtub Improv"). In essence, though, Wright's
ambition is much larger than this, namely to convince himself and us of
what he arrives at in "Clarification":
Of all the powers of love,
this: it is possible
