Beginning Again by Franz Wright

Franz Wright was born on March 18, 1953 in Vienna, Austria. He currently lives in Waltham, Massachusetts. Wright married Elizabet Oehlkers, an American translator, in 1999. Like father like son, both Franz and James (his father) are poets. Also, Franz and James are the only father/son combo to win the Pulitzer Prize in the same category.

Beginning Again

“If I could stop talking, completely
cease talking for a year, I might begin
to get well,” he muttered.
Off alone again performing
brain surgery on himself
in a small badly lit
room with no mirror. A room
whose floor ceiling and walls
are all mirrors, what a mess
oh my God -

And still
it stands,
the question
not how begin
again, but rather

Why?

So we sit there
together
the mountain
and me, Li Po
said, until only the mountain
remains.
It took me awhile to figure out who the speaker was throughout the poem. For awhile, I thought the speaker was Wright, but in the third stanza, it became clear that the speaker of the poem was Li Po. "So we sit there together the mountain and me, Li Po said...." Overall, I would classify this poem as a reflective poem because the speaker is reflecting on his life and trying to start over.

I thought the topic of the poem was interesting because every now and then, people wish to a have a bright red, REDO button. When someone pushes the button, time rewinds to the point where he or she can resay or redo something in his or her life. Like a man forgot to set his alarm clock the night before, woke up late, arrived to work late, and got chewed out by his boss. The man presses his handy dandy bright, red REDO button and voila, he goes back to the night before and sets his alarm clock.

The how part of starting over is always important, but there is more. "...but rather Why?"
WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY... All little kids chant this at one point or another is their lives. I feel sometimes people want to start over every time something wrong happens in their lives (even something as little as forgetting to set the alarm clock). But, Wright his hinting at something deeper. Something that cannot be fixed by the simple push of a bright red REDO button. Something that takes time, thought, and sometimes leaves a person scrambling around for a light in the dark. This idea is prominent in the lines "'If I could stop talking, completely cease talking for a year, I might begin to get well,' he muttered." and "Off alone again performing brain surgery on himself in a small badly lit room with no mirror. A room whose floor ceiling and walls are all mirrors, what a mess..." I would never want to perform brain surgery because it is super complicated, messy, and just plain gross. Brains are not the most beautiful part of the body. Which leads me to believe that starting over is not going to be pretty or beautiful or quick or easy. Beginning again, writing a new chapter or book in a person's life will be messy, slow, frustrating, and sometimes ugly.