Speak

“A Blessing” by James Wright (1963)

This is one of Wright’s best-known poems. In its celebration of happiness in a natural, outdoor setting, it is quite different from the alienation and loneliness conveyed in “Speak.” The speaker and his friend visit two ponies in a pasture just off the highway. The ponies seem pleased to see them, and one of them walks up to the speaker, who caresses her ear and feels joy at this communion with another creature: “[I]f I stepped out of my body I would break / Into blossom.”

“The Minneapolis Poem” by James Wright (1968)

This poem from Shall We Gather at the River, the same collection that contains “Speak,” elaborates on the speaker’s affinity with the poor and the oppressed. Among the people he has in mind are unhoused old men who die by suicide in the Mississippi and gay people fearful of being assaulted. Wright’s empathy for the marginalized is combined with a longing for a nature-facilitated transcendence: “I want to be lifted up / By some great white bird unknown to the police.”

“At the Executed Murderer’s Grave” by James Wright (1959)

The murderer in the poem is George Doty, who was executed in Ohio in 1951 and is mentioned in “Speak.