James Wright's Poem For Kathleen Ferrier

James Wright was born and raised in a small working-class town in Martins Ferry, Ohio, on December 13, 1927. His poems have a beautiful and American feel to them because he knows firsthand what it’s like to labor for a living. He was able to overcome the hardships of his adolescent life and make something of himself but not without a cost. He struggled with mental illness and alcoholism up until his death March 25, 1980, in New York City, NY. He writes a lot about nature, color and light, and death. Specifically in the poems “Poem for Kathleen Ferrier”, “A Blessing”, and “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota”.

Nature is a poetic device that is greatly present in James Wright’s poems. In “Poem for Kathleen Ferrier”

In his elegy “Poem for Kathleen Ferrier” Wright expresses greatly this feeling of depression and heart break over the singer, Kathleen Ferrier. The character loves her voice and expressed this in stanzas 3-6. Wright stated, “And when it dropped away/ I thought, for one deaf moment/ That I could never listen/ To any other voice.” These lines are so beautiful because they show the almost irrational hurt, but a hurt so many feel when confronted with a loss of someone close to their heart. He believes he will never feel that passionate for any other voice again. James Wrights “A Blessing” describes the loneliness of two ponies in a field all by themselves. When the main character and a friend go to visit the ponies, the two can barely contain their joy and need for attention. Although the ponies seem to love each other and seem to be a couple they still crave more affection. This is apparent in lines 12 and 13, “They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other/ There is no loneliness like

“Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” is a great example of that because almost every line Wright puts a mental image in the readers head. This poem is describing a man lying in a hammock and observing his surroundings, memorized. In line 8 Wright describes where the man is relaxing, ”In a field of sunlight between two pines.” The reader can almost see the rays of golden sunlight stretching through the pine trees above the man. You can imagine the big field of long uncut grass with sunlight bouncing off the blades as well. This descriptive imagery is also in James Wrights, “A Blessing”.When describing a pony whom the main character is visiting he writes, “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 girl’s wrist (21-23).” Wright does a beautiful job of describing this young pony. His words like “wild”, “light breeze”, “delicate”, all put a direct and knowledgeable picture in the reader’s mind that is so