Wright, Charles (1935-…), an American poet, served as poet laureate of the United States from 2014 to 2015. Wright won the 1983 National Book Award for Country Music: Selected Early Poems (1982) and the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his collection Black Zodiac (1997).
Much of Wright’s poetry is intricately textured and structured. His main themes are time, the past, family, and the influence of place, as well as Wright’s own spiritual journey, which is as much about frustration as fulfillment. His style reflects such influences as ancient Chinese poetry, the rich language of the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins , and the concrete images of the American poet Ezra Pound . Wright grew up in rural Tennessee, and some critics claim his work reflects a common Southern concern for the past and its power. His later work is more meditative and personal, blending images, experiences, and ideas about time and history.
Wright has published more than 20 books of poetry. Much of his major work has been collected in three trilogies, which he calls the “Appalachian Book of the Dead.” The first trilogy, Country Music (1982), consists of a few poems from The Grave of the Right Hand (1970), as well as Hard Freight (1973), Bloodlines (1975), and China Trace (1977). The second trilogy, The World of the Ten Thousand Things (1990), consists of The Southern Cross (1981), The Other Side of the River (1984), Zone Journals (1988), and Xiona (1990). The third trilogy, Negative Blue (2000), consists of Black Zodiac, Chickamauga (1995), Appalachia (1998), and North American Bear (1999). Much of his poetry since the late 1990’s has been collected in Bye-and-Bye: Selected Late Poems (2011). Oblivion Banjo (2019) is a collection of poems from throughout his writing career.
In addition to his poetry, Wright has published two books of criticism, Halflife (1988) and Quarter Notes (1995), both subtitled Interviews and Improvisations. He has also translated the poetry of the Italian poets Dino Campana and Eugenio Montale.
Charles Penzel Wright, Jr., was born on Aug. 25, 1935, in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of Savannah, Tennessee. He received a B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1957 and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Iowa in 1963. He taught in the Master of Fine Arts Program at the University of California, Irvine, from 1966 to 1983, and in the creative writing program at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, from 1983 to 2011.
