“I’m very honored and flattered to be picked, but also somewhat confused,” Mr. Wright said in a softly accented voice, after apologizing for the sound of buzz saws cutting trees in the yard that he has described in poem after poem.

“I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he continued. “But as soon as I find out, I’ll do it.”

Since that first phone call
I’ve been somewhat confused, sure. But finally
things are back to normal, I think.

Anyway, I awoke this morning
then didn’t bother to get up.
The sun was shining anyway,
like always. So, I thought… after a while…
why bother
getting up?
I just lay there for a while,

thinking about nothing in particular,
and not wondering why things weren’t really going anywhere.
I don’t care about progress, anyway,
it doesn’t interest me. Never has,
even though I’ve somehow lived to see my seventies anyway. You see?
You don’t really have to try.

And really, why get up, after all is said and done?
Well, said, anyway.

Although, one gets hungry
eventually.

And the people at school aren’t really waiting for me to show up.
They already know where I am,
or suspect that I am
probably just lying in bed, or dead.

Image: collage of photos of Charles Wright by Holly Wright, and Rae’s diner, Santa Monica, California.

Quoted text is from Jennifer Shuessler, “Charles Wright Named America’s Poet Laureate,” NY Times 12 June 2014.