On Poetry: Immediacy of experience

April 18, 2009 08:55 pm

—

The great poet James Wright was visiting poet for a semester at the University of Delaware when I was on the faculty there.

In spite of his capacious intellect, James and his wife Annie were like the two ponies in his poem, shy and awkward, preferring to roam the sun-filled fields in nearby Kennett Square, Pa., with me and my husband and two other friends.

My son, then 7 years old, sat on a stump while James sang him the Swedish Chef's song from Sesame Street. It is this immediacy of experience that informs all Wright's poems, his willingness to let his intense and formal training as a poet rest gently in the work, singing as if the lines were so simple a child could write them.

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girls wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

-- James Wright (1927-1980)

Fleda Brown is professor emerita, University of Delaware, and past poet laureate of Delaware. For more of Fleda Brown's On Poetry columns, log on to record-eagle.com/onpoetry.

Photos

Fleda Brown