James Arlington Wright is widely recognized as one of America's finest contemporary poets. He was born December 13, 1927 in Martins Ferry, Ohio. He was the second of three children; Ted, James and Jack. His father, Dudley, was a die cutter at Hazel-Atlas Glass in Wheeling, a nearby town in Virginia, where his mother, Jessie, worked at White Swan Laundry. Both had to leave school in their early teens to work. In 1946 they graduated from high school as Valedictorian and enlisted in the United States Army. He trained at the engineering school at Fort Lewis, Washington. He served 18 months in the workforce in Japan. When he returned from the Army he enrolled at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He received his master's degree and began working on his PhD. at the same time he began teaching at the University of Minnesota and later at MacAlester College. He received his PhD. from the University of Washington for studies on Charles Dickens and gave public readings. He taught at Hunter College in New York from 1966 to 1980. He also worked as a translator. He completed some of his poems while teaching college and says he feels no conflict between teaching duties and the work of writing non-academic books. Wright grew up during the Great Depression, which was mentioned in many of his poems. Many of his real-life experiences were influenced by his writing, including the poetry he wrote after his father's death. In 1979 he sought medical treatment for a sore throat and discovered tongue cancer that caused his death. He died on March 25, 1980, aged 52. Since 1980, the James Wright Poetry Festival has taken place annually in Martins Ferry in April as part of honoring the poet's contributions. Last year... halfway through the paper... in rural Minnesota they saw two Indian horses in a field. They stopped the car and met the horses. The camp was fenced, which he calls the difference or gap between nature and humans who were also part of nature. The writer states that the horses welcomed him and his friend into their world, he uses personification here. Through this poem he reveals his feelings when he met those animals. In the poem he mentions horses as gentle, shy, loving and solitary, the qualities usually possessed by humans. The horses seemed thrilled to have human company. By the end of the poem the author begins to feel more comfortable in the natural world, on the other side of the barbed wire. Wright has publicly stated that he does not believe in God, hence the title - a blessing could refer to his experience on the other side of the fence where he may feel blessed.