James Wright

Language is the last frontier--it always has been and always will be.

Not Higgs-Bosun--the God-particle--not outer space (wherever that is), not the discovery of a bone whose DNA is traced to the beginning of time.

It's language--what you see and what you say about what you see.

This is why poets are so important, and so rare.

A real poet makes you feel what it's like to be really alive, and what it might be like to be dead.

Only a few poets are born in every century.

James Wright was born in 1927 and died in 1980. His book, "The Branch Will Not Break" was published in 1963 by Wesleyan University Press. To this day it is a perfect book of poetry. Each poem contains the lyrical information that real living language demands of the past, present and future. It's the book of the 'cold war' in America and of ancient Chinese dynasties; of children and animals, Eisenhower and Franco, of this world and the other.