UA’s Bankhead Writers Series To Present Poet C.D. Wright

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Poet C. D. Wright will read from her work on Thursday, Oct. 12, at 7:30 p.m., in 205 Smith Hall on The University of Alabama campus, as part of UA’s Bankhead Visiting Writers Series.

Wright has published nine collections of poetry, most recently the book-length poems “Deepstep Come Shining,” “Tremble” and “Just Whistle.” On a fellowship for writers for the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Foundation, Wright curated “A walk-in book of Arkansas,” an exhibition which toured her native state for a two-year period.

Wright has received numerous fellowships and awards, including two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the Witter Prize for Poetry from the American Academy and Institute for Arts and Letters, a Fellowship from the Bunting Institute, a Whiting Writers Award, and a Rhode Island Governor’s Award for the Arts.

“String Light” won the 1992 Poetry Center Book Award given by San Francisco State University, and in 1994 Wright was named State Poet of Rhode Island, a five-year post. She was Visiting Professor at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop in the fall of 1997, and in 1999 she was awarded a Lannan Literary Award and an artist grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts.

Wright’s poems and essays have appeared in BRICK, Conjunctions, Epoch, Field, The New Yorker, Sulfur, Tri-Quarterly, and other magazines. With poet Forrest Gander, Wright edits Lost Roads Publishers.

Wright currently teaches at Brown University in Providence, R.I., and she is currently undertaking a new collaboration with Deborah Luster at Angola Prison in Louisiana.

The Bankhead Visiting Writers Series is made possible by an endowment from the Bankhead Foundation, UA’s creative writing program, the department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences.

For more information or to obtain a schedule of the 2000-2001 Bankhead events, contact the UA creative writing program at 205/348-0766.