James Wright
Born	James Arlington Wright (1927-12-13)December 13, 1927 Martins Ferry, Ohio, U.S.
Died	March 25, 1980(1980-03-25) (aged 52) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Poet
Education	Kenyon College (BA) University of Washington (MA,PhD)
Literary movement	Deep image poetry
Notable works	"Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" and "A Blessing" fromThe Branch Will Not Break (1963)
Spouse	Liberty Kardules ​ ​ (m. 1953; div. 1962)​ Edith Anne Crunk ​ (m. 1967)​
Children	2;Franz and Marshall

James Arlington Wright (December 13, 1927 – March 25, 1980) was an American lyric poet in the post-World War II decades. He often wrote about his experience ofDepression-era poverty in theMidwest.^[1] HisCollected Poems won the 1972Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.^[2]

James Wright was born and raised inMartins Ferry, Ohio. His father worked in a glass factory, and his mother in a laundry. Neither parent had received more than an eighth grade education. In 1943, James suffered anervous breakdown, postponing his junior year in high school. After weeks in apsychiatric ward and months performing manual labor,^[3] he returned to school and graduated late in 1946.^[4] He then enlisted in the U.S. Army and participated in the occupation of Japan.^[2]

Following his discharge from military service, Wright attendedKenyon College on theGI Bill. He studied withJohn Crowe Ransom, and published poems in theKenyon Review. Wright graduatedPhi Beta Kappa in 1952. That same year, he married Liberty Kardules, another Martins Ferry native.^[3] He subsequently spent a year inVienna on a Fulbright Fellowship, returning to the U.S. where he obtained a master's degree and a Ph.D. at theUniversity of Washington; his faculty advisers were the poetsTheodore Roethke andStanley Kunitz.^[4]

Wright first emerged on the literary scene in 1956 withThe Green Wall, a collection of formalist verse that was awarded the prestigiousYale Younger Poets Prize. By the early 1960s, he was increasingly influenced by the Spanish language surrealists, and dropped the use of fixed meters. His transformation achieved its maximum expression with the publication of the seminalThe Branch Will Not Break (1963), which positioned Wright as curious counterpoint to theBeats andNew York School poets. He became aligned with the Midwestern neo-surrealist anddeep image poetics.^[5]

Wright's transformation did not come by accident, as he had been working for years with his friendRobert Bly, collaborating on the translation of world poets in the influential magazine,The Fifties (laterThe Sixties).^[3] Such influences fertilized Wright's unique perspective and helped put the Midwest back on the poetic map. He had discovered a terse, imagistic, free verse of clarity and power. During the next ten years, he would go on to pen some of his most frequently anthologized works, such as "A Blessing," "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio," and "I Am a Sioux Indian Brave, He Said to Me in Minneapolis."

Wright was a lifelong smoker, and was diagnosed in late 1979 with cancer of the tongue. He died a few months later in Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. His last book of new poems,This Journey, was published posthumously byRandom House.^[6]

Wright's early poetry is relatively conventional in form and meter, especially compared with his later, looser work.^[7] Although most of his fame comes from his own poetry, he was also a prolific translator of other poets. He published translations ofRené Char'shermetic poems. His translations of modern German and Spanish poets,^[1] as well as his exposure to the aesthetic position and poetics ofRobert Bly, had considerable influence on the evolution of Wright's poetry. This is most evident inThe Branch Will Not Break, which departs from the formal style of his previous book,Saint Judas.

In his poetry, Wright often "allied himself...with the dispossessed and the outcast."^[8] Throughout his life, he suffered fromclinical depression andbipolar mood disorders, and also battledalcoholism. He experienced several nervous breakdowns, was hospitalized, and was subjected toelectroshock therapy. While his dark moods and focus on emotional suffering were often at the center of his poetry, his poems could be optimistic, expressing faith in life and human transcendence. InThe Branch Will Not Break, the enduring human spirit becomes thematic. Nevertheless, the last line of his poem "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" famously reads, "I have wasted my life."^[9]

Technically, Wright was an innovator, especially in the use of his titles, first lines, and last lines, which he employed to great dramatic effect in defense of the marginalized.^[10] He is equally well known for his tender depictions of the bleak landscapes of the post-industrial American Midwest.

Wright won the 1972Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his volumeCollected Poems (1971).

Besides his various poetry awards, Wright was a recipient of a grant from theRockefeller Foundation.^[11] He regularly corresponded with another Rockefeller grantee, the Catholic nun, literary critic and poetM. Bernetta Quinn.^[12][13][14]

After his death, Wright developed a cult following that regarded him as a seminal American poet. Fellow Pulitzer prize winnerMary Oliver wrote "Three Poems for James Wright" upon his death, and hundreds of writers gathered annually to pay tribute at theJames Wright Poetry Festival held from 1981 through 2007 inMartins Ferry.

Wright's sonFranz was also a poet, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2004. James and Franz are believed to be the first parent/child pair to have won a Pulitzer Prize in the same category.^[15]

• The Green Wall (Yale University Press, 1957)^[11]
• Saint Judas (Wesleyan University Press, 1959)^[11]
• The Branch Will Not Break (Wesleyan University Press, 1963)^[11]
• Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio—Broadside (1963)
• Shall We Gather at the River (Wesleyan University Press, 1967)^[11]
• Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1971)^[11]
• Two Citizens (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973)
• Moments of the Italian Summer (Dryad Press, 1976)
• To a Blossoming Pear Tree (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977)

• This Journey (1982; completed in 1980)
• The Temple at Nîmes (1982)
• James Wright, In Defense Against This Exile. Letters To Wayne Burns., edited with an introduction by John R. Doheny (1985)
• Above the River, The Complete Poems, introduction byDonald Hall (Noonday Press,University Press of New England, andWesleyan University Press, 1990). Included byHarold Bloom in his list of works constituting theWestern Canon.^[16]
• Selected Poems (2005)
• A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright (2005)
• The Delicacy and Strength of Lace: Letters Between Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright., edited by Anne Wright and Joy Harjo (2009)

• James Wright Poetry Festival
• Deep image

• Blunk, Jonathan (2017).James Wright: A Life in Poetry. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.ISBN 978-0374178598.
• Magill, Frank N., ed. (1992).Critical Survey of Poetry. Vol. 7. Salem Press.ISBN 978-0893568375.
• Maley, Saundra R. (1996).Solitary.Apprenticeship: James Wright and German Poetry.Lewiston, Maine: Edwin Mellen Press.ISBN 978-0773422575.
• Storlie, Erik F. (2013).Go Deep and Take Plenty of Root: A Prairie-Norwegian Father, Rebellion in Minneapolis, Basement Zen, Growing Up, Growing Tender. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.ISBN 978-1482695984. Recollections of James Wright, Chapters 6–11.
• Wright, Anne; Maley, Saundra, eds. (2005).A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.ISBN 978-0374185060.

• James Wright reading one of his poems Audio of Wright reading "As I Step Over a Puddle at the End of Winter, I Think of an Ancient Chinese Governor"
• James Wright (1927-1980) Links to biographical sketch, selected poems, and critical commentary, hosted by theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
• James Wright, The Art of Poetry No. 19 Interview of Wright in 1975 inThe Paris Review

• 1927 births
• 1980 deaths
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American poets
• American male poets
• Hunter College faculty
• Kenyon College alumni
• Macalester College faculty
• Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• People from Martins Ferry, Ohio
• People with bipolar disorder
• Poets from Ohio
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners
• Sports poets
• United States Army soldiers
• University of Minnesota faculty
• University of Washington alumni
• Yale Younger Poets winners

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata