Pulitzer Prize-winning poet to read, discuss his work

April 21, 2010
11 a.m.

Franz Wright, who won a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his book “Walking to Martha's Vineyard,” and is the son of poet James Wright, will read and discuss his work at two free events, April 20 and 21, at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus.

Wright will read his work and sign books at 7:30 p.m. April 20 in Pima Auditorium (room 230) in the Memorial Union, and talk about his writing at a Public Craft Q&A at 11 a.m. April 21 in Piper Writers House.

Both events are sponsored by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and co-sponsored by Superstition Review, the literary magazine of ASU’s Polytechnic campus.

Wright, born in Vienna, began writing poetry at the age of 15. According to the Blue Flower Arts Web site, Wright sent one of his poems to his absentee father (also a Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry) who wrote back, “You’re a poet. Welcome to hell.”

Wright writes about love, joy, rage, God, loneliness and relationships. He has published 14 collections of poetry, including “God’s Silence” and “The Beforelife.”

Gerard Hanberry wrote of his work, “We encounter sack-clothe and the ashes of a sometimes regretted past but hope shimmers in these poems like the space where the stained glass window would be if this were a perfect world.”

Wright is currently the writer-in-residence at Brandeis University. He has also worked in a mental health clinic in Lexington, Mass., and as a volunteer at the Center for Grieving Children.

For more information about either event, contact the Piper Center for Creative Writing, (480) 965-6018 or www.asu.edu/piper.

To learn more about the Piper Center's Visiting Writers Program, click here. Check out the Superstition Review at http://www.asu.edu/superstitionreview/n4/index.html.