Robert Wrigley - 1951
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Advanced English III
Emmett High School, Emmett, Idaho.
Robert Wrigley is a rising star among poets, especially Idaho poets. He is a prestigious Idaho poet who conscientiously conveys outdoor views, objectively tells of his personal experiences, and variously narrates surreal experiences in his poetry.
I. Personal and Professional Biography
Robert Wrigley was born on the 27th of February in 1951 in East Saint Louis, Illinois (Davis 1). He grew up in Collinsville, Illinois, a nearby coal-mining town. When Wrigley was around 20 years old in 1971, the government inducted him into the United States Army with a draft number of sixty-six. After training for four months, Wrigley filed for discharge from the army on grounds of conscientious objection and was honorably discharged after five more months of training as part of "Special Training Detachment #2" at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas ("Conspire"). After leaving the army, Wrigley married Vana Lynn Berry, his high school sweetheart (Davis 1).
College
After his stint with the Army, Wrigley decided to go to college at Southern Illinois University. In 1974 he graduated with honors with a BA in English Language and Literature (Davis 1). Closely thereafter, Wrigley enrolled at the University of Montana. It was there that he developed a profound and abiding love for the western wilderness. Wrigley studied with Madeline DeFrees, John Haines, and the late Richard Hugo ("Conspire"). In 1976, he earned an MFA in Poetry (Davis 1). Wrigley is the first member of his family ever to graduate from college and the first male in many generations–in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wales, and Germany–never to work in a coal mine.
Family
In 1977, Wrigley's first son, Phillip, was born. Wrigley later divorced Vana Lynn Berry in 1981. He went on to marry Kim Marie Barnes in 1983 and have a daughter, Jordan, in 1988 and in 1990 another son, Jace (Davis 1). Wrigley resided for many years near Rattlesnake Point on the Clearwater River at the Omega Bend in Idaho ("Conspire"). After living ten years in a home that hovered one thousand feet above the Clearwater River, Wrigley moved to the heights of Moscow Mountain ("Explanatory").
Teaching
Wrigley teaches poetry workshops and other poetry-related and literature-related college courses (Reign ). He started his career in 1977 at Lewis and Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho, as Professor of English. Wrigley taught at Boise State University's Summer Writers Workshop in 1988. In 1989 and 1990, he went east to Swannonoa, North Carolina, to teach in the poetry-enriched MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. In 1990 and 1991, he was the Acting Director and Visiting Professor of the MFA Program at the University of Oregon. At Montana University, Wrigley has twice held the distinguished Richard Hugo Chair in Poetry as the Richard Hugo Distinguished Poet-in-Residence. He is the only writer to hold it twice and the first former student to hold the chair, which he held in the years of 1990 and 1995. For the years 1993 through 1999, Wrigley has appeared at the Idaho Readers' and Writers' Rendezvous. In 1993, he was the visiting professor of the Grace Nixon Summer Seminars at the University of Idaho (Davis 2). Wrigley joined the University of Idaho Graduate English Department staff in 1999, after spending twenty-two years as a professor at Lewis and Clark State College ("UI Professor"). At the University of Idaho, he currently teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing ("Conspire"), where he hopes his recent acquisition of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award will help draw more students to writing under his instruction.
His Poetry
Wrigley maintains a middle-class point of view in his writings (Davis xxvii) and has remarked, "I want to be read by people who normally don't read poetry" ("Gave a Reading"). His poems are often shaped by the discoveries he has made from self-examination and solitude ("Whitworth"). A good teacher hooked Wrigley onto writing poems, although he had intended on writing novels (Reign). Through the years, Wrigley's poetry has become more and more complex in theme, sound, and form (Davis xxvii). This is best explained in his own words: "I write about things that occupy the gray area between the sacred and the profane, the beautiful and the sinful. I tell my students to learn all the rules but to write poems with their bodies more than their minds. That's what makes readers feel and smell and taste... A poem is a struggle between music and meaning, and neither should win" ("Gave a Reading"). Wrigley's most recent poems focus on his family and on Idaho, where he has lived for over twenty years ("UI Professor").
II. Praise for Wrigley's Writing
Many people have acclamatory comments for Wrigley's writing. Stanley Plumley has remarked, "against the inchoate and mortal powers, Wrigley's poems are whole." Prairie Schooner exclaimed, "invigorating narratives [...an] abundance of intellectual and aesthetic rewards." Edward Hirsch proclaimed, "Robert Wrigley's poems of testimony and memory cast a fierce, clarifying, and ultimately healing light into the dark reaches of the American psyche." Booklist added that Wrigley has, "an acute eye for authentic detail and a subtle ear for the rhythms and cadences of real speech, and what he has to say is worth hearing." James Dickey declared Wrigley, "one of the finest new poets to come along in years: strong, imaginative, and resolute" ("Two of Wrigley's Finest"). Leslie Ullman says about In the Bank of Beautiful Sins: "Whether he's tracking a lynx in a canyon or remembering from his Kansas boyhood the 'smell of heat' as his mother ironed shirts late on Monday nights, his reflections implicitly acknowledge the forces that govern man's endeavors in an almost impersonal way—the instincts to work, to love, to raise one's young, to find or revise one's faith—just as animals are driven to hunt, mate, and to hide...[...]" ("Gave a Reading").
III. Works Published
Wrigley has published two chapbooks and five books of poetry. He published The Sinking of Clay City in 1979 and three years later, in 1982, he published The Glow, a limited-edition chapbook. In 1986, he published Moon in a Mason Jar, and then he published another limited-edition chapbook called In the Dark Pool in 1988. What My Father Believed was published in 1991. His highly acclaimed In the Bank of Beautiful Sins was published in 1995. The University of Illinois Press combined his earlier books, Moon in a Mason Jar and What My Father Believed, into a compilation in 1997. Wrigley's most recent and, also, most-awarded book, Reign of Snakes, was published in the autumn of 1999 (Davis 2). He has had nearly three hundred poems published in twenty-four anthologies and in more than eighty magazines and literary journals, including Vital Signs, The Atlantic Monthly, and Poetry Northwest ("Whitworth").
IV. Fellowships and Awards
Robert Wrigley has been supported by many sources. The National Endowment for the Arts has given him fellowships in 1978 and 1984. The Idaho Commission on the Arts has given him fellowships for the years 1985 and 1993 ("Whitworth"). Cutbank Magazine gave Wrigley the Richard Hugo Memorial Award for Poetry in 1987 (Davis 1) and Poetry Magazine gave him the Frederick Bock Prize in 1998 ("Whitworth"). Wrigley was also awarded a John Ciardi Fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in 1988 (Davis 1). In 1991 and 1992, Wrigley received Pushcart Prizes for his poetry ("Whitworth") and in 1995 he secured the Celia B. Wagner Award from the Poetry Society of America ("Conspire"). In the Bank of Beautiful Sins received the 1996 San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award from The Poetry Center and the American Poetry Archive at San Francisco State University. In the Bank of Beautiful Sins was also one of five finalists for the Lenore Marshall Award from the Academy of American Poets. Wrigley received a Theodore Roethke Award from the University of Washington's Poetry Northwest in 1997 ("Whitworth"). Wrigley's poems in the April, May, and June 1998 issues of Poetry Magazine made possible his achievement of the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize (Davis 1).
Reign of Snakes
A 1996 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship made Wrigley's book, Reign of Snakes, possible ("Conspire"). Wrigley took off the 1996 to 1997 academic year to work on his book. Reign of Snakes is Wrigley's fifth book, a collection of about forty poems. Wrigley took themes from nature, including views of his garden, surroundings, and wild animals that inhabit the area that he lives. The poetry explores spiritual concepts and peoples' relationship with nature ("Reign of Snakes"). Reign of Snakes is described by Wrigley as his most ambitious collection because of the complexity of ideas and situations presented, such as the existence of the soul and his own religious faith ("UI Professor"). Claremont Graduate University awarded Reign of Snakes the 2000 Kingsley Tufts Award in poetry ("Whitworth"). The $50,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award is one of the most generous literary prizes awarded in the United States. It is given to poets who have yet to reach a pinnacle, but are benefiting from a successful midpoint in their career. Wrigley is the eighth recipient of the award, among Yusef Kamunyakaa, B.H. Fairchild, John Koethe, Campbell McGrath, and Deborah Digges ("UI Professor"). The Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award ranks Wrigley as a great poet who has yet to shine his brightest (Reign).
Public Appearances
Thus granted, Wrigley is not an entirely solitary poet; on the contrary, he is a very socially active. Governor John Evans appointed Wrigley the Idaho "Writer-in-Residence" for 1986, 1987, and 1988. Also, Wrigley was honored in 1987 by a proclamation in the Idaho House of Representatives. He read at the Library of Congress as part of "The Legacy of American Poetry" in 1987, a gathering inspired by and honoring the United States' first Poet Laureate, Robert Penn Warren. In 1997, Wrigley was selected as the Idaho representative for Writing America , an anthology published by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1999, he served on the selection committee for the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize with Elizabeth Spires and Joseph Parisi; awarding Maxine Kumin the $75,000 prize (Davis 2).
Recognition
Robert Wrigley and Kim Marie Barnes, his wife who is also a writer, have been recognized numerous times in videos, articles, and radio interviews. Wrigley and Barnes were featured in Poets & Writers Magazine. He was a guest on "Writers on the Air" with James Schumock on Pacifica Radio Network. Grace Cavalieri interviewed Wrigley on National Public Radio in "The Poet and the Poem" in 1988. "Idaho Writers in Place," a 1994 film by Alan Lifton and M.K. Browning, featured Wrigley as a resident Idaho poet (Davis 1).
V. Conclusion
Robert Wrigley is obviously becoming more and more well known. His talent has guided him through a full life that hasn't reached its pinnacle yet. Continuing to write, Wrigley will find help where he needs it, and words shall fall in the right places. He is a wonderful poet, and his light is yet to shine as brightly as it can.
VI. Works Cited
"Conspire Featured Artist: Robert Wrigley." Online Posting.
Davis, Joanne. Blood Knot, Brain Weave: Evolution of Music and Meaning in the Poetry of Robert Wrigley. Thesis Boise State University, Boise, ID. May 2000.
"Explanatory" Online Posting. Gettysburg University. Winter 2000.
"Gave a Reading at LHU November 5, 1998." Online Posting.
http://www.lhup.edu/~rparker/wrigley.htm
"Reign of Snakes by U of I's Wrigley Wins Nation's Top Poetry Prize." Idaho Statesman. 1
May 2001. 1B. "Two of Wrigley's Finest Collections of Poems are Now Together in One Volume." Online Posting. University of Illinois Press.
"UI Professor Robert Wrigley Wins Award." Online Posting. University of Idaho. 7 Mar. 2000.
http://www.uidaho.edu/UIcommunications/News/archives/20000307-646.html
"Whitworth Sept. 2000 Simpson-Duvall Lectureship." Online Posting. Whitworth College. 26 Sept. 2000.
This essay was submitted by a student of Joanne Davis, an English teacher at Emmett High School in Idaho.