- Jay Wright (poet)
Jay Wright (born
1934 ) is anAfrican-American poet ,playwright andessayist . Born inNew 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 inBradford, 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 writerWilson 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 theUniversity 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 authorHenry Dumas , who died in New York City in1968 , 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 byHarold Bloom ), 1987
*"Boleros", 1991In 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 in1986 , the prestigious Fellowship of theAcademy of American Poets in1996 ; the2005 Bollingen Prize in Poetry , becoming the first African-American writer to be so honored; and the2006 American Book Award Lifetime Achievement Award from theBefore 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]
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