Daisy Fried on Franz Wright's "Wheeling Motel"
posted by greg rappleye at 3:38 AM
Saturday, September 19, 2009
About Me
- Name: greg rappleye
- Location: Grand Haven, Michigan, United States
I am a writer who lives and works in West Michigan. I am a graduate of Albion College, the University of Michigan Law School, and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. I have published three full-length collections of poetry: Holding Down the Earth (Sky Books, 1995), A Path Between Houses (University of Wisconsin Press, 2000) which won the Brittingham Prize, and Figured Dark (University of Arkansas Press, 2007), which won the University of Arkansas Press Poetry Series. I have also published three chapbooks: Eros, Psyche and the Death of Narrative (Candle Creek Press, 2006), The Afterlight (WVU-Legal Studies Forum, 2006), and The Divisible Field ( WVU-Legal Studies Forum, 2008), and have completed a fourth manuscript, Tropical Landscape with Ten Hummingbirds. I am working on a novel. My work has received a Pushcart Prize, the Mississippi Review Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Prize, the Greensboro Review Literary Award in Poetry, and the Arts & Letters Prize. I was a Bread Loaf Fellow in 2002. When not writing, I work full-time as corporation counsel for a local government and also teach part-time in the English Department at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
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10 Comments:
I wonder what William Logan would have to say about this book? Fried walks the middle path pretty well, and that's fine. I don't know Wright's work so can't chime in, but this got me to thinking generally about Logan's reviews in comparison.
Hey Pam, why slober over Logan, why not go for the real thing, like Rush Limbaugh?
Franz Wright is a great one. I'm glad to hear he's come out with a new book.
Pam:
Franz Wright and William Logan––as you may surmise from the comment of "F.W."––do not, shall we say, "get along."
That is only one reason why Franz Wright is one of my heroes.
Gregg, I did not know this when posting but after reading FW's comment did a bit of research and learned online about their history, which I hadn't meant to revisit at all, actually was more thinking about the Fried review and how open her approach was as compared to Logan, that's all. I now understand FW's over-reaction to my comment.
William Logan is an embittered man who wishes he was a good poet; this is why he lashes out at great poets--such as Mr. Wright.
"Fried walks the middle path pretty well"? I disagree. I thought her review of "Wheeling Motel" was uniformed, and, at best, scattershot.
These lesser poets who happen to find themselves in the role of Critic do Criticism a disservice by bringing personal vendetta and charlatan vitriol into their work.
--Charles
Fans of Franz Wright should check out
Readings from Wheeling Motel
There seems to be some sense in the Fried review that diving deep
into the vocation of Poet, as opposed to say being social (often), is a negative. I'd say it's what pushes you through to the other side--life, death . . .
In other words, it called putting in your time at the desk. If you
happen to love it (being at the desk) as Wright surely does, how
wonderful is that . . . and rare . . .
Fried's review left me a little queasy. She kept saying really rotten things and then saying in effect, but if you like that sort of thing,then this is great. The title alone was a slap in the face. & she tried to get cute with big contrasts that actually had nothing to do with the book.I thought it was a creepy review, all told.
I'd never heard of Franz Wright before but I just ordered "Wheeling Motel" based on Daisy Fried's review. I happen to love her poetry but that wouldn't have convinced me. The review did. (The reading on facebook helped too.)
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