Jay Wright (poet)

Jay Wright (born 1934) is an African-American poet, playwright and essayist. Born in New Mexico, [ [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/365 Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More - Jay Wright ] ] [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2278/is_n3_v18/ai_14285299 Jay Wright's poetics: an appreciation - Poetry and Poetics | MELUS | Find Articles at BNET.com ] ] he currently lives in Bradford, Vermont. Although his work is not as widely known as other American poets of his generation, it has received considerable critical acclaim. Wright's work is emblematic of what the Guyanese-British writer Wilson Harris has termed the "cross-cultural imagination."

Over the years he has been poet in residence at Yale University as well as historically Black colleges and universities such as Talledega University, Tougaloo University, Texas Southern University, and the University of Dundee.

Early Years

Wright played professional baseball before studying comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley and Rutgers University. [ [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/365 Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More - Jay Wright ] ] In the 1960s, he befriended fellow African-American author Henry Dumas, who died in New York City in 1968, and later wrote the introduction to Dumas's "Play Ebony, Play Ivory: Poetry"

Bibliography

*"Death as History" (pamphlet), 1967
*"The Homecoming Singer", [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2278/is_3_23/ai_54925300 Prodigal's Progress: Jay Wright's Focal Center - African American poet | MELUS | Find Articles at BNET.com ] ] 1971
*"Soothsayers and Omens", 1976
*"The Double Invention of Komo", 1980
*"Explications/Interpretations", 1984
*"Dimensions of History", 1984
*"Elaine's Book", 1986
*"Selected Poems" (Robert B. Stepto, editor, with an afterword by Harold Bloom), 1987
*"Boleros", 1991

In 2000, Wright's first several books were collected in a single volume, entitled "Transfigurations: Collected Poems", which also included new poems. In 2007, he published "Music's Mask and Measure" and "The Guide Signs: Book One and Book Two". In addition, he published his play "Balloons: A Comedy in One Act" in 1968 and has published others in literary journals.

Awards

Wright has won many awards for his work, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship in 1986, the prestigious Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets in 1996; the 2005 Bollingen Prize in Poetry, becoming the first African-American writer to be so honored; and the 2006 American Book Award Lifetime Achievement Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

References

External links

* [http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/bollingen/ Bollingen Prize website]
* [http://bostonreview.net/BR27.2/meyer.html Book Review: Transfigurations]
* [http://record.wustl.edu/archive/1996/10-24-96/3883.html Jay Wright's poetry focus of symposium at Washington University]
* [http://online.colum.edu/pipermail/announce/Week-of-Mon-20011008/000286.html Jay Wright Poetry Reading at Columbia College]