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ART HUGHES: James Wright's poem, "A Blessing", begins, "Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, twilight bounds softly forth on the grass". It was written after Wright and his friend, Robert Bly, pulled their car off the road and encountered a pair of horses. Appropriately, the cast aluminum plaque inscribed with Wright's poem is indeed just off the highway to Rochester. Some 200 high school students attended the plaque's unveiling at the invitation of Garrison Keillor, who was one of Wright's students at the University of Minnesota.

Keillor told the audience that the poem was written at a tumultuous time for Wright. His marriage to his first wife was failing. He was depressed and drinking heavily. And he was about to be fired by the University. And yet, Keillor says, here is a love poem full of light.

GARRISON KEILLOR: He came south in his car. And he saw two horses in a field. This man who was full of grief, and sorrow, and misery. And he wrote a poem about the horses that has no grief, and no misery, and no trouble in it at all. He never mentions the terrible situation that he is in. It's a love poem, and it's a poem of great hope.

ART HUGHES: Keillor called Wright a great man who was never ashamed of his simple roots. And Keillor says he was always faithful to his students.

GARRISON KEILLOR: And for a young writer, back then, to get a word of encouragement from James Wright was really worth more than money. It was the sort of encouragement that could last you for years. So when he praised, even slightly, one of my poems, I really felt blessed.

ART HUGHES: Wright's poems are described as simple and accessible and are often taught alongside poets such as Robert Frost and Walt Whitman. Peter Stitt is editor of the Gettysburg Review, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and is writing a biography of Wright. He says despite Wright's personal difficulty living life day to day, "A Blessing" is one of the most uplifting poems ever written.

PETER STITT: The sense of delight that this speaker takes from the episode with the horses is so strong that the poem ends on these wonderful words. Suddenly, I realize that if I stepped out of my body, I would break into blossom. And that's a wonderful apotheosis, probably the most positive moment in all of 20th century American poetry.

ART HUGHES: Roland Flint is a poet and a retired Georgetown University professor. He was also a student of Wright's. He says he was more an admirer than friend. He says Wright's work is full of music. And he wrote a poem for Wright, titled "Jim".

ROLAND FLINT: I gave my lunch apple to a horse yesterday and remembered the horse who was your friend, David, eating the only copy of one poem in Minnesota. So last night, I reread your final book again, moving among the Ohio French and especially Italian people and animals of your last journey. Some of the resolved gentleness here makes me cry.

ART HUGHES: After the sign dedication, while other students played frisbee or ate lunch, Mayo High School sophomore Jessica Blondel sat alone under a tree, reading a book of poetry handed out at the ceremony. She says she likes Robert Frost and Edgar Allen Poe, among others, and has been writing poetry for four years herself. She says she appreciates how poetry can be a release for anxious feelings.

JESSICA BLONDEL: I guess it all depends on how you look at the poem. I see it as-- for him, he was so proud, I think, to see something peaceful and nice where his life was so corrupt that he didn't get to see anything like that every day. So he wrote it down for the people that had the same problem. So that they know that there's something peaceful out there.

ART HUGHES: The road sign with Wright's poem is just off the eastbound lane of Interstate 90, at the High Forest Safety Rest Area, nine miles east of Dexter. The annual festival in honor of James Wright is later this month at the public library, in Wright's hometown of Martins Ferry, Ohio. In Rochester, I'm Art Hughes, Minnesota Public Radio.