Carolyn D. Wright

C. D. Wright

Carolyn D. "C. D." Wright (born 1949) is an American poet.

Biography

Wright was born in Mountain Home, Arkansas to a chancery judge and a court reporter. She earned a BA from Memphis State College (now the University of Memphis) in 1971 and briefly attended law school before leaving to pursue an MFA from the University of Arkansas, which she received in 1976. In 1979, she took a position at the San Francisco State University Poetry Center, which exposed her to many of the leading proponents of language poetry. In 1983 she moved to Providence, Rhode Island to teach writing at Brown University, where she is Israel J. Kapstein Professor of English. Stephen Burt has described her as an Elliptical Poet.

Wright's early poetry was often narrative, but her later work has become increasingly experimental. Her poetry is strongly rooted in a sense of place and regional voices, particularly those of Rhode Island and the Ozarks. She has published literary maps of both Rhode Island and Arkansas. Her first and second books, Room Rented by a Single Woman and Terrorism: Poems, were published by Frank Stanford's Lost Roads Publishers. Wright and her husband, Forrest Gander, began running Lost Roads after Stanford's death in 1978. Wright's later work includes String Light; Deepstep Come Shining, a book-length poem; and One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana, a collaboration with photographer Deborah Luster. Her poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and many other anthologies.

Awards

• 1987 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 1994 Poet Laureate of the state of Rhode Island
• 1999 Foundation for Contemporary Arts, grant
• 2004 MacArthur Fellowship
• 2009 Rising, Falling, Hovering winner Griffin Poetry Prize
• 2010 One With Others, nominee National Book Award (Poetry)
• 2010 One With Others, winner National Book Critics Circle Award (Poetry)

Works

• Translation of the Gospel Back into Tongues (SUNY Press, 1981)
• Further Adventures with You (Carnegie Mellon, 1986)
• String Light (U. of Georgia Press, 1991)
• Just Whistle (Kelsey Street Press, 1993)
• Tremble (Ecco, 1996)
• Deepstep Come Shining (Copper Canyon Press, 1998)
• Steal Away: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2002) (shortlisted for the 2003 International Griffin Poetry Prize)
• One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana (Twin Palms, 2003) with photographs by Deborah Luster
• Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil (Copper Canyon Press, 2005)
• Rising, Falling, Hovering (Copper Canyon Press, 2008) (winner of the 2009 International Griffin Poetry Prize)
• 40 Watts (Octopus Books, 2009)
• One With Others (Copper Canyon Press, 2010)

External links

• Griffin Poetry Prize biography
• Griffin Poetry Prize readings, including video clips
• .mp3 recording of Wright reading from "One Big Self" during the Key West Literary Seminar, 2003
• C. D. Wright--The Academy of American Poets
• "Interview", Kent Johnson, Jacket Magazine
• "Only the crossing counts," Slate magazine
• Bent Tones by C. D. Wright
• Overview Wright's work at Open Letters

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