Campo and Wright: Doctor- and patient-poet men

Great article by James Parker in The Phoenix this week about local poets Rafael Campo and Franz Wright, who write about the body in sickness and in health. (Full disclosure: Campo is indeed a doctor, my own, in fact.)

Long before he was my PCP, Campo intrigued me with his devotion to forms, particularly the sonnet, and the way that he subverted the norms of the Shakespearean norm and wrote poems about AIDS and death.

Franz Wright, too, manages to reinvigorate his work through his struggles with hospital wards, Catholicism, and other matters of the heart.

Bravo to Parker and The Phoenix for giving space to poetry, a real commitment these days when all the media wants to talk about is politics, the economy, and celebrity gossip.

Filed under: literature, AIDS, franz wright, medicine, poetry, rafael campo