C.D. Wright - 1947
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By Susan Huetteman
I. Background Information
No author more greatly exemplifies the spirit of the American Collection's Literary Map than poet and editor C.D. Wright. Her compilation of over 200 authors and their works are found in the beautifully designed and impeccably researched A Reader's Map of Rhode Island (1999).
Deservedly, she is among ten international writers to be awarded the 1999 Lannan Foundation Literary Award. The award recognizes writers "who have made significant contributions to the English-language literature or who show potential for outstanding future works."
"This is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world," said Former State Legislator Ray Rickman and creator of the Rhode Island Poet Laureate position.
Lead me; guide me to the light of your paper.
Keep me in your arc of acuity.
And when the ream is spent.
Write a poem on my back.
I'll never wash it off. 1
Born in 1947 and raised in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, Wright's most recent poetry publication is Deepstep Come Shining (1998). A gifted storyteller, her grasp unwinds a single long poem through the South on an unusual and acute journey. Sometimes talking like your best friend, sometimes illusive and with uncanny perceptions: "Just stay quiet. Listen awhile. The white piano misses us. The white dog dreaming under the white bench is catching up with the cottontail." 2
Now director of creative writing at Brown University in Providence, Wright is the author of nine collections of poetry and an eclectic publication list. Her Lost Roads Project: A Walk-in Book of Arkansas (1994), a multimedia tour, is a collection of World War II writers and state letters. She wrote poetry for Providence Mayor Cianci's 1995 inauguration and for Rhode Island Governor Almond's support of the Hunger Brigade. With poet Forrest Gander she is a Lost Roads Publisher's editor.
Her newest undertaking is a collaboration with photographer Deborah Luster at Angola prison in Louisiana.
"In my book, poetry is a necessity of life," Wright says. "It is a function of poetry to locate those zones inside us that would be free, and declare them so." 3 Stop when you read C.D. Wright's authenticity. Breathe deeply to feel her artistry.
II. Wright's Literary Works
Translations of the Gospel Back into Tongues(1982)
Further Adventures With You(1987)
String Light(1991)
Just Whistle (with photographer Deborah Luster, 1993)
Reader's Map of Arkansas and Lost Roads Project: A Walk-in Book of Arkansas(1994)
Downtown in January (commission for Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. inauguration, 1995)
Tremble(1996)
Deepstep Come Shining(with photographer Deborah Luster, 1998)
A Reader's Map of Rhode Island (1999)
Collaboration with Deborah Luster at Angola prison in Louisiana (in process)
Other Publications
Alla Breve Loving
Room Rented by a Single Woman
Terrorism
Further Adventures with You
Poetry and essays have appeared in Brick, Epoch, Field,the New Yorker, Sulfur, and Tri-Quarterly
III. Awards and Honors
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, residency in Mexico (1981)
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1986)
Witter Bynner Prize for Poetry, American Academy and Institute for Arts and Letters (1986)
Bunting Institute Fellowship (1987)
Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1987)
GE Award for literary Essay (1987)
Rhode Island Governor's Award for the Arts (1990)
Poetry Center Book Award, San Francisco University for String Light (1992)
Poet of Rhode Island (1994-99)
The Lannan Foundation Literary Award (1999)
Other
Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation Fellowship: curator of a two-year tour of A Walk-in Book of Arkansas
Governor Almond commission for the Windman Junior High School Hunger Brigade, Warwick
IV. Posts and Residence
University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, Visiting Professor (1997)
Brown University, Professor (current position)
C. D. Wright and Forrest Gander live with their son, Brecht, in Barrington, RI
V. Footnotes
1. Wright, C.D. Deepstep Come Shining. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 1998, p. 1
2. Ibid., p. 43
3. Ibid., back cover
VI. Other Sources
Correspondence: C.D. Wright to Susan Huetteman, 10/12/99 and 10/13/99
Ozawa, Melissa. "C.D. Wright Introduces Magdalena Zurawski." American Poet. NY: The Academy of American Poets, Fall 1999, pp.23-25.
"R.I. Poet Laureate Wins Literary Acclaim." Providence Journal.October 6, 1999, A11.
My appreciation to C.D. Wright for her generosity in the development of the Rhode Island segment of the American Collection's Literary Map, and for her permission to quote A Reader's Map of Rhode Island (Barrington, RI: Lost Roads Publishers, 1999).
This essay was submitted by Susan Huetteman, a retired teacher in Rhode Island.