C. D. Wright

was born and raised in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. She is the author of a dozen books, including the book-length poems, Deepstep Come Shining and Just Whistle. In 1994 she was named State Poet of Rhode Island, a five-year post. She also authored two state literary maps. With photographer Deborah Luster, she published One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana. The project won the Lange-Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and their collaboration exhibited at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City, and the Corcoran Museum in Washington, D.C. among others. On a fellowship for writers from the Wallace Foundation, she curated a “Walk-in Book of Arkansas,” an exhibition that toured throughout her native state for two years.

Her most recent titles are One Big Self: An Investigation (Copper Canyon, 2007), Like Something Flying Backwards, New and Selected (Bloodaxe Editions, 2007), Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil (Copper Canyon, 2005). Rising, Falling, Hovering will be out in 2008, also from Copper Canyon Press.

She is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, and awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Lannan Foundation. Steal Away: Selected and New Poems was a finalist for the 2003 Griffin Poetry Prize. In 2004 she was named a MacArthur Fellow. In 2005 she was given the Robert Creeley Award and elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wright is the Israel J. Kapstein Professor of English at Brown University. She lives outside of Providence with her husband, poet Forrest Gander. Their son’s name is Brecht.

***

Here is Kent Johnson interviewing Wright in a piece first published in Jacket magazine, and here is another interview with jubilat. You'll notice references to Stephen Burt's analysis of Wright's work in these interviews, so you might want to look at his book review in the Boston Review.

***

And here is a Lannan Podcast audio event that features Wright reading her work and talking with Stephen Burt. Click play to listen.

***