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James Wright's Poem, A Blessing

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In 1943, at a high school, somewhere in Ohio, there was a student having a nervous breakdown. Although he missed a year of school because of this, he went on to join the army after graduating. Continuing on in his studies, he traveled to Austria to study at the University of Vienna. Considered one of the best contemporary poets of America, James Wright was admired by many including other poets and critics alike. He had an ability with language and style that was very loosened. As a child, Wright endured poverty and hardship because his parents worked in factories and laundromats. His writing and use of poetry is greatly influenced by his own opinions about society and politics, as well as Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost. Both Frost and Hardy have extreme issues and feelings that Wright truly respected. Wright’s early …show more content…

James Wright’s poem “A Blessing” is about a speaker come across a meeting with some ponies. It starts off with the speaker straying off the main path or road. Continuing on this path, the speaker encounters two ponies grazing in a pasture. This is the beginning of the mysterious and serene incident. The use of luscious and flowing imagery describes the ponies, “Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear.” This helps conveys the speaker’s depth of emotion. Towards the end of the poem, it becomes more surreal and breathtaking. The speaker is expressing their feelings about the experience in an unusual and unexpected way. By creating a pastoral surrealism scene, the subject is mysterious, and the emotional or spiritual experience is hard to explain and it captures the reader. This experience is attached to Wright’s common themes of loneliness and separation. At the end of the poem, the speaker says “if I stepped out of my body I would break.” This means that the speaker doesn’t want to challenge or is afraid of coming out of their comfort

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