WMU News

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet presents reading

Sept. 8, 2000

KALAMAZOO -- The 1998 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Charles Wright, will present a reading of his work at Western Michigan University Thursday, Sept. 21.

Wright, who received the prize for his book "Black Zodiac," will read at 8:30 p.m. in Room 3508 of Knauss Hall. A reception for the author will follow on the 10th floor of Sprau Tower, and books by Wright will be available for sale by Athena Bookstore. The reading is sponsored by the Department of English and is free and open to the public.

Wright, who teaches creative writing as the Souder Family Professor of English and poet-in-residence at the University of Virginia, is one of America's most honored poets. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, he has received the National Book Award for Poetry, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Prize and the Ambassador Book Award. In 1999, Wright was named Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He also has been named a Fulbright Scholar and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry.

Wright is the author of fifteen books, including "The Southern Cross," "The Other Side of the River," "Zone Journals," "Xionia," "The World of the Ten Thousand Things," "Chickamauga" and his latest volume, "Negative Blue." He is also the author of several chapbooks, translations, and two books of non-fiction, "Halflife" and "Quarter Notes."

For more information, persons should contact Julie Stotz-Ghosh at (616) 373-9212 or by email to <x92stotz@wmich.edu>.

Media contact: Marie Lee, 616 387-8400, marie.lee@wmich.edu


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