C. D. Wright Papers
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Scope and Content Note
The collection consists of poetry broadsides, posters, publications, and other representations of poet C. D. Wright's literary career, as well as some personal materials, such as a birth announcement for her son.
Dates
- 1982-2016
Creator
Language of Materials
Materials are in English.
Access Information
Please call (479) 575-8444 or email specoll@uark.edu at least two weeks in advance of your arrival to ensure availability of the materials.
Use Information
No Use Restrictions Apply.
No Interlibrary Loan.
Standard Federal Copyright Laws Apply (U.S. Title 17).
Biographical Note
C. D. Wright was an award-winning contemporary American poet and academic.
Carolyn Doris Wright was born January 6, 1949, in Mountain Home, Arkansas, to Judge Ernie E. Wright and Alyce (Aline) E. Collins Wright. Wright graduated from Harrison High School in 1967. She earned a bachelor’s degree in French from Memphis State University in 1971 and a master of fine arts in creative writing from the University of Arkansas in 1976. After graduating, she lived in both New York and San Francisco, where she taught poetry at San Francisco State University from 1979-1981 before moving to Rhode Island and joining the faculty of Brown University, where she taught from 1983 until her death. In 1983, she married Forrest Gander; the couple had one son, Brecht Wright Gander.
Her first collection of poetry, Room Rented by a Single Woman, was published by Frank Stanford’s Lost Roads Publishers in 1977. After Stanford’s death, Wright and her husband took on responsibility for the press, which they served as co-editors for until 2005. Wright’s other published books of poetry include Translation of the Gospel Back into Tongues (1982), Tremble (1996), Deepstep Come Shining (1998), Rising, Falling, Hovering (2008), One with Others (2010; National Book Critic’s Circle Award winner), and ShallCross (2016). She collaborated with Arkansas photographer Deborah Luster on One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana (2003) and The Lost Roads Project (1994).
In 1987, Harrison, Arkansas, declared “Carolyn Wright Day,” and she was named Boone County Poet Laureate; that same year, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Wright served as Poet Laureate of Rhode Island from 1994-1999. She won the Witter Brynner Prize for poetry, a Lannan Literary Award, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2004) and a Robert Creeley Award (2005). The Academy of American Poets welcomed her as a chancellor in 2013.
Wright passed away January 12, 2016, in Barrington, Rhode Island.
Extent
7 Linear Feet (4 boxes)
Arrangement of the Papers
Materials are arranged by format.
Acquisition Information
The C. D. Wright Papers were purchased by the Special Collections Department from Derringer Books (Woodbridge, CT) on April 12, 2018, as part of a larger collection of C. D. Wright's personal library materials. These papers were processed as a manuscript collection, while the other publications acquired as part of this purchase have been cataloged as part of the C. D. Wright Collection.
Separated Materials
The C.D. Wright Papers were purchased along with C.D. Wright’s library of her own works, which have been cataloged as part of the Arkansas Collection.
Processing Information
Processed by Katrina Windon; completed in September 2018.
- Title
- C. D. Wright Papers
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Katrina Windon
- Date
- September 2018
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Finding aid is written in English.
Repository Details
Part of the Special Collections Department Repository
University of Arkansas Libraries
365 N. McIlroy Avenue
Fayetteville AR 72701 United States
(479) 575-8444
specoll@uark.edu