Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

Jeffrey Cyphers Wright is a New Romantic poet of the "New York School third generation" according to The Brooklyn Rail in a review of "Captured, A Film and Video History of the Lower East Side" published by Seven Stories Press. Known as a poet, he is also a publisher, critic and eco-activist in New York City. Born in Delaware in 1951, he grew up in West Virginia where he went to college with the writer Jayne Anne Philips. He is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently The Name Poems from Sisyphus Press. Wright's poems have been published widely in magazines and work also appears in six anthologies including "Out of This World" from Crown Press and "Thus Spake the Corpse" from Black Sparrow Press. Poetry and art criticism has appeared in ARTnews, Art and Antiques and The Brooklyn Rail among others. Wright is currently the art critic for Chelsea Now. Wright lives in the East Village in New York City where he is also an impresario who has hosted scores of poetry readings and performances at various venues, from Tompkins Square Library to cafes and clubs, galleries and community gardens. He has also taught poetry and writing for Teachers and Writers Collaborative, Brooklyn College, The Poetry Project and many other places. Upon arriving in New York in 1976, Wright studied with Ted Berrigan and Alice Notley at St. Mark’s Church. He also studied with Allen Ginsberg at Brooklyn College and received an MFA in poetry. He started Hard Press in 1978 and published 100 postcards by different artists and poets and three books, including the anthology 3-Zero, Turning Thirty. A selection of postcards were included in "A Secret History of the Lower East Side," and were displayed at New York Public Library. From 1986 until 2001 he published 80 issues of Cover Magazine, The Underground National. Wright currently edits Live Mag! and hosts poetry events at Mo Pitkin's and La Mama Etc.

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Recent writing can be found on the following websites:

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Mauro-America-Italian-Artist-Visits/dp/0300092210 - 123k -

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Brooklyn Art

Haworth Press

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Upon publishing Wright’s long poem “Touch Base” in Exquisite Corpse, editor Andrei Codrescu described the work as a “tour de force.”

Reviewing Employment of the Apes, Dennis Cooper wrote, “Wright’s talent appears bright… as well as attractive in the categories of feeling, inspiration and temperament. The affect is simultaneously intimate and imaginative.”

Hugh Seidman wrote about Flourish, “These ‘sonnets’ are a gas. Wright is never afraid to pull out the stops of artifice and go over the top.”