Poets

Carolyn D. "C. D." Wright (born January 6, 1949) is an American poet.

C. D. Wright was born in Mountain Home, Arkansas to a chancery judge and a court reporter. She earned a BA in French from Memphis State College (now the University of Memphis) in 1971 and briefly attended law school before leaving to pursue an MFA from the University of Arkansas, which she received in 1976. Her poetry thesis was titled Alla Breve Loving. In 1977 the publishing company founded by Frank Stanford, Lost Roads, published Wright's first collection, Room Rented by A Single Woman. After Stanford died in 1978, Wright took over Lost Roads, continuing the mission of publishing new poets and starting the practice of publishing translations. In 1979, she moved to San Francisco, where she met poet Forrest Gander. Wright and Gander married in 1983 and have a son, Brecht, and co-edited Lost Roads until 2005. In 1981, Wright lived in Dolores Hidalgo, Mexico and completed her second book of poems, Translation of the Gospel Back into Tongues. In 1983 she moved to Providence, Rhode Island to teach writing at Brown University where she is now Israel J. Kapstein Professor of English. In 2013, Wright was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Stephen Burt has described her as an Elliptical Poet. while Joel Brouwer has said she "…belongs to a school of exactly one."

Wright's poetry is rooted in a sense of place and time and often employs distinct voices in dialogue, particularly those of th..