Kirby's Wright's Weblog

MAUI WEEKLY book review Excerpt!

Before The City: Collected Poems and Prose Poems

by Kirby Wright

Reviewed by

Joseph W. Bean, THE MAUI WEEKLY

Poet Kirby Wright may be familiar to some in Hawaii as the writer of “Aloha, Liliuokalani,” a plaintive poem distributed hand to hand at the Liliuokalani statue during the 100-year anniversary of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. In it, the poet cries out to the long-dead queen that “Kapiolani is a park. Kaiulani is a hotel…” and “(n)ow Kalakaua is an avenue.” Wright says, “That poem went on to win the Robert Browning Society Award and Kapono was considering putting music to the words.” Maybe Kapono never wrote the notes on paper, but there is song enough in the words and in the feelings expressed. Any reader will hear the blue, persistent melody.

Another of Wright’s poems, “Punahou Reunion,” was recently shared at Final Senior Chapel, by the President of Punahou, with the school’s 2003 graduating class. Wright, obviously enough, is a Punahou graduate himself, and a poet of growing stature whose work has been published in many magazines, literary reviews and anthologies.

Posted by Kirby at April 1, 2004 07:21 PM