Franz Wright's Ill Lit brings together a substantial selection of poems from earlier volumes, some of them significantly revised by the author, and a group of twenty-one new poems, along with a selection of translations. A courageous writer who has, in his words, committed himself to the task of "giving a voice to conditions or states of mind normally associated with speechlessness," Franz Wright demonstrates here, again and again, his ability to make poems that are haunting, somber, and luminous.