Charles Wright (born August 25, 1935) is an American poet. He shared the National Book Award in 1983 for Country Music: Selected Early Poems and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for Black Zodiac. In June 2014, he was named Poet Laureate of the United States.
Life
Wright was born in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee. Wright attended Christ School (North Carolina) in Asheville for his junior and senior years where he helped coach football, served as vice president of his class, and became a member of the honors program. While at Christ School, he enveloped himself in the literature that would inspire him to write. By the time he graduated in 1953 he had read everything Faulkner had written. He then matriculated at Davidson College and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the Sapienza University of Rome and at the University of Padua. From 1966 to 1983, he taught at the University of California, Irvine. Fellow Colleagues poets Robert Peters and James L. McMichael and novelist Oakley Hall shared during this time directorship of the university's well-known Master of Fine Arts program.
He is now a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets and Souder Family Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. On June 12, 2014, the Library of Congress announced that Wright would serve as Poet Laureate of the United States beginning on September 25, 2014.
Works
Beside the award-winning books Country Music (1982) and Black Zodiac (1997), Wright has published Chickamauga, Buffalo Yoga, Negative Blue, Appalachia, The World of the Ten Thousand Things: Poems 1980-1990, Zone Journals and Hard Freight. His work also appears in Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts.
Wright has published two works of criticism, Halflife and Quarter Notes. His translation of Eugenio Montale's The Storm and Other Poems won him the PEN Translation Prize in 1979. In 1993, he received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for his lifetime achievement.
Bibliography
- Caribou, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.
- Bye-and-Bye: Selected Late Poems Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012. â€" winner of the 2013 Bollingen Prize
- Outtakes Sarabande, 2010.
- Sestets Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009.
- Littlefoot Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007.[1]
- Scar Tissue Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006. â€" winner of the 2007 International Griffin Poetry Prize
- The Wrong End of the Rainbow Sarabande, 2005.
- Buffalo Yoga Farrar, Straux & Giroux, 2004.
- A Short History of the Shadow Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002.
- Negative Blue Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000.
- North American Bear Sutton Hoo, 1999.
- Appalachia Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998.
- Black Zodiac Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997. â€"winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
- Chickamauga Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995. â€"finalist, 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
- Quarter Notes (improvisations and interviews) U of Michigan Press, 1995.
- The World of the Ten Thousand Things. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990.
- Xionia Windhover Press, 1990.
- Zone Journals Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1988.
- Halflife (improvisations and interviews) U of Michigan Press, 1988.
- The Other Side of the River. Random House 1984. â€"finalist, 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
- Orphic Songs. Dino Campana (translations) Field Editions, 1984.
- Country Music: Selected Early Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1982) â€"shared the National Book Award for Poetry with Galway Kinnell, Selected Poems; finalist, 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
- The Southern Cross Random House, 1981. â€"finalist, 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
- The Storm and Other Things Eugenio Montale (translations) Field Editions, 1978.
- China Trace Wesleyan University Press, 1977.
- Bloodlines Wesleyan University Press, 1975.
- Hard Freight Wesleyan University Press, 1973.
- The Grave of the Right Hand Wesleyan University Press, 1970.
Further reading
- Schuessler, Jennifer (June 12, 2014). "Charles Wright named America's Poet Laureate". The New York Times.Â
References
External links
- Charles Wright: Online Resources from the Library of Congress
- Profile at Poetry Foundation
- Charles Wright, The Art of Poetry No. 41. The Paris Review (113). Interview with J. D. McClatchy. Winter II 1989.Â
- Charles Wright's papers reside at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia