"Precious Moments" and the majority of the poems from "Every First and Fifteenth" are acts of stripping down nostalgia to its core in order to bear witness to what was and the memories and decisions that still linger. This poem in particular, which finds its home in the ritualization of Sunday morning cleaning, expands upon the religiosity of matriarchy, capitalism, property, and the passing of time.
Dimitri Reyes on "Precious Moments" |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Aaron Anstett on James Wright's "Eisenhower's Visit to Franco, 1959"
"This poem, at once narrative, lyrical, and political, led me to more James Wright poems and to Spanish poets beyond Machado, particularly in the bilingual anthology Roots and Wings, which I discovered in my high school library along with the still-powerful Hayden Carruth anthology, The Voice That Is Great Within Us. From there followed a continuing lifetime of delight, bafflement, and discovery in poems." |
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