Intake Interview

Below is the text of the poem “Intake Interview” by Franz Wright. Here is a video of the author reading the poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=YzDlpXPF9Sk

Here is some additional information about the author: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/franz-wright

After reading the poem, choose one of the lines to respond to. What does it mean to you? Why do you think the poet included it? What do you notice about the way the poet phrased the line?

Intake Interview – by Franz Wright

What is today’s date?

Who is the President?

How great a danger do you pose, on a scale of one to ten?

What does “people who live in glass houses” mean?

Every symphony is a suicide postponed, true or false?

Should each individual snowflake be held accountable for the avalanche?

Name five rivers.

What do you see yourself doing in ten minutes?

How about some lovely soft Thorazine music?

If you could have half an hour with your father, what would you say to him?

What should you do if I fall asleep?

Are you still following in his mastodon footsteps?

What is the moral of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”?

What about his Everest shadow?

Would you compare your education to a disease so rare no one else has ever had it, or the deliberate extermination of indigenous populations?

Which is more puzzling, the existence of suffering or its frequent absence?

Should an odd number be sacrificed to the gods of the sky, and an even to those of the underworld, or vice versa?

Would you visit a country where nobody talks?

What would you have done differently?

Why are you here?