African-American poet, playwright and essayist Jay Wright will join the Duke English Department for two days in April as the 2013 Blackburn Visiting Poet.
Wright will give two public readings. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 9, he will read poetry in McClendon Commons. A reception will follow. At 8 p.m. the following evening he will read from one of his plays in the East Parlors on Duke's East Campus.
Wright is known for his explorations of African-American heritage and spirituality through a multicultural lens. Born in New Mexico, he is influenced by the Spanish, Mexican and Navajo cultures. His writings have also incorporated the beliefs of West African tribes such as the Dogon, Bambara, Akan and the Nuer.
His most recent work includes two book-length poems -- "The Presentable Art of Reading Absence" and "Parables, Proverbs, Paradigms, and Praise for Lois" -- that were published in 2008.
Amongst his achievements, Wright received the 2000 Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Literary Award, the Oscar Williams and Gene Derwood Award, the Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, the Bollingen Prize from Yale, and Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships. He has worked as a poet-in-residence at several universities including Yale and the historically black universities, Talledega University, Tougaloo University and Texas Southern University.
Wright currently lives in Vermont. To learn more, visit the English Department website.