Jay Wright (May 25, 1934 - ) is a poet, playwright, and essayist considered one of America’s leading African-American voices. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, his early exposure to Mexican, Spanish, and Navajo cultures has had a lasting effect on his poetry, and geography and culture are all major themes in his work.
Before embarking on his writing career, Wright played professional baseball, appearing 76 games over two seasons (1953–1954) with the Mexicali Eagles of the Arizona-Texas League and the Fresno Cardinals of the California League. After his baseball career, he briefly studied chemistry at the University of New Mexico before joining the United States Army. After serving for three years in the Medical Corps, Wright earned his BA from the University of California in 1961. In 1967, he earned his MA in comparative literature from Rutgers University.
Wright’s first major published collection, The Homecoming Singer (1971), established his reputation as a gifted poet. In 2019, he published his seventeenth book of poems, The Prime Anniversary. In addition, Wright is an accomplished playright and essayist
Wright has been poet-in-residence, writer-in-residence and visiting professor at numerous institutions, including Washington University, Yale University, University of Dundee, Talladega College, Tougaloo College, Texas Southern University and Brandeis University.
He also received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Ingram Merrill Foundation Award (1974), Guggenheim Fellowsip (1974-75), American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Literature Award (1981), John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1986-91), the Academy of American Poets Fellowship (1996), the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award for Transfigurations: Collected Poems (2000), the Bollingen Prize in Poetry (2005), and the American Book Award Lifetime Achievement Award from the Before Columbus Foundation (2006).
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