Papers of Charles Wright ca. 1890-1998

Location of collection:

University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept.

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library

University of Virginia

P.O. Box 400110

160 McCormick Rd

Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4110

Contact for questions and access:

POC: Brenda Gunn

Email: bg9ba@virginia.edu

Phone: (434) 924-1037

Phone: (434) 243-1776

Fax: (434) 924-4968

Web: library.virginia.edu/special-collections

Web: library.virginia.edu/special-collections/services/reference-request

Restrictions:

The collection is without restrictions.

Terms of access:

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred citation:

Papers of Charles Wright, Accession # 11437, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

Summary

Abstract:

This collection consists of the papers of American poet and University of Virginia English professor, Charles Penzel Wright (1935 - ), ca. 5,000 items (38 Hollinger boxes, ca. 16 linear shelf feet), ca. 1890-1999, including manuscripts, poetry and translation notebooks kept by Charles Wright, professional and personal correspondence, photographs, printed material, news clippings, artwork, interviews, book reviews, and tape recordings.

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Papers of Charles Wright, Accession # 11437, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection consists of the papers of American poet and University of Virginia English professor, Charles Penzel Wright (1935 - ), ca. 5,000 items (38 Hollinger boxes, ca. 16 linear shelf feet), ca. 1890- 1999, including manuscripts, poetry and translation notebooks kept by Charles Wright, professional and personal correspondence, photographs, printed material, news clippings, artwork, interviews, book reviews, and tape recordings.

The correspondence files with other poets and literary persons and family, have been arranged by the last name of the correspondent (Boxes 1-17). The more frequent correspondents and correspondence with some of the other Pulitzer Prize winners in poetry have been placed in separate folders with the total number of letters noted in the guide.

Correspondence with persons who have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry include: John Ashbery (1 item), Louise Gluck (6 items), Jorie Graham (13 items), Anthony Hecht (1 item), Richard Howard (4 items), Donald Justice (142 items), Galway Kinnell (3 items), Yusef Komunyakaa (1 item), Maxine Kumin (1 item), Philip Levine (207 items), William Meredith (3 items), W.S. Merwin (11 items), Lisel Mueller (1 item), Charles Simic (31 items), James Tate (27 items), Robert Penn Warren (2 items), and Richard Wilbur (2 items).

Other types of correspondence are arranged chronologically in a separate subseries B (Boxes 17-21). This includes correspondence about awards, conferences, workshops, poetry readings and other professional engagements, poems submitted to or accepted by poetry magazines and anthologies, and requests for Wright to judge poetry contests, write recommendations or evaluate candidates for academic positions; greeting cards; post cards; and invitations and announcements.

Of special interest in series two containing manuscripts by Charles Wright are the twelve volumes of hand-written poetry kept by Wright in bound notebooks, from 1968 until the present. These contain his autograph poems in chronological order as they were written. When the poems were used in his published books, Wright would mark through them in pencil. The manuscript series also has an autograph volume for Wright's translation work and one called "Halflife ( A Commonplace Notebook)," where he has recorded quotes or his own thoughts about poetry and related subjects.

Also present in a second subseries and arranged according to the title of the book, are typescripts, setting copies, page proofs, and galleys, for many of his published works, although some typescripts of early manuscripts had already been sold to private collectors in the early eighties prior to the acquisition of these papers by the Library.

A third subseries contains copies of miscellaneous manuscripts by Charles Wright, including: a copy of his Masters Thesis submitted at the University of Iowa, typescripts and galleys of individual poems published in magazines such as The New Yorker, and miscellaneous other manuscripts by Wright.

A third series contains manuscripts by other authors sent to Wright for his comment or enjoyment and are arranged by the last name of the author. Most are not complete manuscripts of books by other authors, but when they are and the title of the book is known, it is included in the guide. Some are accompanied by letters from the authors, often discussing their work.

Series four contains miscellaneous papers including: interviews and essays about Charles Wright, artwork by other people, biographical entries about Wright, contracts and publication agreements, a dissertation chapter about Wright, news clippings and printed, photographs, programs, reviews of books by Wright, royalties and honorariums, student papers about Wright, translations of Wright's poetry into Italian and German, interviews and poetry readings by Wright on audio tape, and oversize photographs, artwork, news clippings, dust jackets, and a Winter family genealogical chart.

including: Brian J. Adams, Elizabeth Adams, W. Howard Adams, Dr. Nicoletta Alegi, Allen Anderson, Paul Anderson, Dyerval Angelini, Bim Angst, Philip Appleman, John Ashbery, Jan Austin-Hicken

including: Lea Baechler, Dr. William J. Bailey, David Baker, Rosetta Baker, Samuel M. Baker, Jr., [?] Banks, Katherine A. Barham, Jim Barnes ( The Chariton Review), Virginia Meadors Barrett, Amy Bartlett, Rick Bass, Joan Baum, Bruce Beasley, Vereen M. Bell, Pam Beck, Pinckney Benedict, Donna Bennett, Steve Benson, Kimber Bentley, Steve Berg, David Berman

including: S. Bishop, Randy Blasing, Laurel Blossom, Joe Bolton, Philip Booth, David Bottoms, Lucius H. Bracey, Jr., Bob Bradley, Dr. Ben B. Braude, Robert Bringhurst, Bunt Britton, Robert Broadway, Anne Brockenbrough, Olga Broumas, David Brown, Sharon Bryan, Heather Burns, S. Burris, Kathryn Stripling Byer

including: Christopher Cahill, Scott Cairns, Paul W. Carmen, Julie Carr, Keith Cartwright, Raymond Carver, Crysta Casey, John Casteen

including: Stacey Chase, Alan Cheuse, Dale Chihuly, Mike Chrisman, Ian Clarke, Karen Clark, Kevin Clark, William Clark, Vince Clemente, Brian Clements, Joshua Clover, Henri Cole, Katie Coles, Michael Collier, Douglas Collins, Floyd Collins, D. Steven Conkle, Jan Conn, Matthew Cooperman, Bonnie Costello, Stephen Coyner, Nancy Crampton, Sybil Crawford, Brad Crenshaw, Cheryl Cross, Pat Cutting

including: Mack C. Dagenhart, Robert Dana, David Daniel, Daniel D'Arezzo, Chalmers Davidson, Lisa Davies, William Virgil Davis, Peter Davison, Sara Dawson, S.R. Day, Thomas Day, Phil Deaver, Gene DeGruson, Chip Delffs, Annie Dillard, Fred Dings, Simone DiPiero, Jim Dissette, Lynn Dow, Lynn Doyle, Becky Dunham, Sharon Dunn, Stephen Dunn

including: Carol Ellis, Jon Enfield, John Engels, Hualing Engle, John Erickson, George Estreich, Pete Everwine

including: Robert Fagles, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., Ruth Feldman, Casey Finch, Reed Finlay, Michael Fitzgerald, Ryan Flaherty, Mary [Flinn?], Harry Ford, Thomas Foster, Linda Jones Foster, Alastair Fowler, Bob Freedman, Terry Freeman, Philip Fried

including: Gale Research Company re Contemporary Authors, Tess Gallagher, Jim Galvin, Mark Gamble, Forrest Gander, John W. Garden, George Garrett, Joseph M. Garrison, Jr.

including: Alessandro Gentili, Margaret Gibson, Stephen Robert Gibson, Dana Gioia, Steven Clay, Michele Glazer, Greg Glazner, Dave Godfrey, Anne Goodman, Steve Goodwin, Linda Gregerson, Arthur Gregor, Maxine Groffsky, Lollie Groth, Chuck Guilford, Thom Gunn, Carol Gunther

including: Rachel Hadas, Charles Hagenah, John Haines, Jim Hall, Daniel Halpern, Colin Hamilton, David Hamilton, Melissa Hammerle, Archie Hardy, James L. Harmon, William Harmon, Michael S. Harper, David Harris, Jeffrey Harrison, Henry Hart, Jim Hartz, William Hauser, John E. Hawkes, Tom Hawks

including: Anthony Hecht, David Heimer, Barbara Heizer, Jim Hejna, Gregory Hengesbaugh, Graham Hettlinger, George Hitchcock, Kells Hogan, Gill Holland, Henry Hollenberg, John Clellon Holmes, Charles Hood, Kathy R. Howard, Richard Howard, Cyrus Hoy, Robert A. Hueckstedt, Harry Humes, Stanley H. Hyman

including: Priscilla Ineff, Earl Ingersoll, Mark Irwin

including: Robert H. Jacob, Leland S. Jamieson, Rod Jellema, Elizabeth Jenkins, Jonathan Johnson, Judy Jordan, Lawrence Joseph, Don Junkins

including: Justin Kaplan, Judy Karasik, Deborah Keenan, John Keene, Hunter Kennedy, Joe Kennedy, Jennifer Key, Thomas N. & Carol B. Key, Kerry Shawn Keys, Mary Kinzie, Karl Kirchwey, Melissa Kirsch, Janet Knepper, Joseph Knittle, Damon, Sharon Kubasak, Maxine Kumin, John W. Kuykendall

including: Andy Lakritz, Linda Lappin, Philip Larkin, Carolyn Lau, Steve Lautermilck, Sydney Lea, Kristy Lee, Rolf Leeman, Margitt Lehbert, Daniel G. Leidig, Graham Leonard, Larry Levis

including: Carl Little, Robert Hill Long, James Longenbach, Robert Longoni, Jon Loomis, John Lord, James Lott, Emily Lu

including: Elizabeth McBride, Davis McCombs, James McCorkle, David W. McCullough, Cynthia McDonald, Marty McGovern, Rex McGuinn, Michael McGuire, John McIntire, Louis McKee, Virginia McKee, Anne McKeithen, John McKernan, Leigh McLellan, Sandy McPherson

including: Mark Madigan, M. Maggi, John Malcolm, Irving Malin, Marianna Manclossi, Coretta Marshall, Mike Martin, William Maxwell, Loredana May, Sue Ann Mead, William Meredith, Kim Merker, Anne Michaels, C. Wolfram Swetz von Middhlar, Jane Miller, Joseph C. Miller, Judy K. Miller, Michael Miller, Amy Minett, Ana Mitric

including: Paul Monette, Lorne Mook, Hugh Moorhead,Pedro Escudero Moreno, Berry Morgan, Elizabeth Morgan, John Morgan, Vance Morgan, Edward Morin, Albert F. Moritz, Mary Morris, John H. Morrison, Craig Mueller, Jenny Mueller, Maureen Mulhern, Rick Mulkey, Michael Murphy

including: Shelly Nameroff, Peter Nijmeijer, Heidi Lynn Nilsson, Denis Noel, Howard Norman

including: Joyce Carol Oates, Robert J. Oberg, Daniel S. Ogbe, Steve Orlen, Greg Orr, Linda Orr, Antonio Lopez Ortega, Victor Ourin

including: Ron Padgett, Michael Palmer, Suzanne Paola, Greg Pape, Jay Parini, Joseph Parisi, Charlie Parish, Kelli R. Patton, Frank H. Pearl, Lu Peck, Michael Peich, Heather Pendergraft, Sam Pereira, Marjorie Perloff, William Phillips, Marge Piercy, L. Piller, Robert Pinsky, Giancarlo Piscione

including: Don Platt, Russell Platt, Marise A. Pokorny, Luke Ives Pontifell, Al Poulin, Jr., Gaetano Prampolini, Clifford W. Price, Bill Pritchard, Wyatt Prunty

including: Isa de Quesada, Alice Quinn, Ricardo J. Quinones

including: Larry Raab, Jim Randall, Robert Randolph, Random House, Inc., Bob Rees, Richard Reeve, Melanie Rehak, James Reiss, David Remnick, Paige Rense, Jan Richman, John Ridland, Dan Rifenburgh, Mrs. J.W. Richel

including: Eunice Robeck, Ellen Roberson, Janet Roberts, the Rockefeller Foundation, Joseph Rodrigues, Jr., William Pitt Root, Paul B. Roth, Louis D. Rubin, Jr., William Ruddy, Mark Rudman, A. Ellison Rumsey, Lex Runciman, Eleanor Rutledge, Peter Russell, Michael Ryan

including: Patrick Samway, Stephen Sandy, Sarabande Books, Molly Schen, Grace Schulman, Robert Schultz, D.J. Schwichow, Nathan A. Scott, Jr., Jim Seay, Joseph Secondi, David W. Sedgwick, Julianne Seeman, Barry Seiler, Mary Serpico-Lay, Bill Sheppard, Rosa Shand, Rukmini M. Sichitiu, Christine A. Sikorski, Alex Silberman, Gary Silva, Merle Singer, P. Singh

including: David A. Skeel, Jr., Jeffrey Skinner, Tom Sleigh, Arthur Smith, Dean Smith, Gibbs M. Smith, Random Smith, Todd Smith, Ellison A. Smyth, Ross J. Smyth, Ann Snodgrass, Ted Solotaroff, Gary Soto, Marcia Southwick, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Amy Spanel

including: Bill Stafford, George Starbuck, George M. Steele, Rene Steinke, Lisa Stending, Gerald Stern, Amy Stewart, Gale Stewart, Jody Stewart, Stride Publications, Dabney Stuart, Adrienne Su, Ron Sukenick, David Summers, Dorothy Sutton, Mary Swander, Joan T. Swenson, Tree Swenson, David Swerdlow

including: John Tagliabue, Indrek Tart, Phillip Taylor, Ross Taylor, Mac Test, Libby Thayer, Mike Theune, Stephen Thomas, Frances Thronson, Ann Townsend, Danielle Truscott

including: University of Michigan Press, University of Tennessee Lupton Library

including: Jean Valentine, Corinna Vallianatos, Nance Van Winckel, Greg Varner, Reetika Vazirani, Helen Vendler, Richard F. Venezia, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Hans Christian von Baeyer

including: David Walker, Rosanna Warren, Patricia Waters, Watershed Foundation, Julia Watson, Miles G. Watson, Richard J. Weekley, Bruce Weigl, Ken Weisner, Barry Weller, Ingrid Wendt

including: Allen Wier, Dara Wier, Ann Williams, John Willson, Joseph Wilmott, Robert A. Wilson, Sam Witt, Tibor Wlassics, C.D. Wright, Barbara Wuest, Edith Wylder

including: Max Yeh, Al Young, Dale Young, Gary Young, John A. Yount, Chris Yu, Corda Zajac, Bill Zander, Mary Zeppa

, including: "After Rereading Robert Graves, I Go Outside to Get My Head Together," "American Twilight," "Citronella," "Disjecta Membra," "Jesuit Graves," "A Journal of One Significant Landscape," "Looking Around II," "St. Augustine and the Arctic Bear," "3 January 1993," and untitled

including text from Barry Lopez

Part One covers from page 59-74 in Halflife
Part Two covers from page 74-88 in Halflife

Biographical / historical:

Charles Wright was born in Pickwick Dam, Hardin County, Tennessee on August 25, 1935, to Charles Penzel and Mary Castleman (Winter) Wright, and was educated at Davidson College (B.A., 1957), the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop (M.F.A., 1963) and the University of Rome (1963-1964). He served in the United States Army Intelligence Corps, 1957-1961, where he studied at the Army Language School, Monterey, California, the first year. He spent the remaining three years of service in and around Verona, Italy, returning there to study on a Fulbright grant in 1963-1964.

Since 1966, Wright has been an English professor, first at the University of California, Irvine (1966-1983), and then at the University of Virginia (1983 until the present). He married Holly McIntire in 1969, and published his first book of poems, The Grave of the Right Hand, in 1970. Other titles of poetry include: Hard Freight(1973); Bloodlines(1975); China Trace(1977); The Southern Cross(1981); Country Music: Selected Early Poems(1982); The Other Side of the River(1984); Zone Journals(1988); The World of Ten Thousand Things: Poems 1980-1990(1990); Chickamauga(1995); Black Zodiac(1997) and Appalachia(1998). During his entire career, Wright has won national recognition for his poetry. Several of these awards include the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Academy of American Poets for Bloodlines(1976), the National Book Award in poetry for Country Music: Selected Early Poems(1983), the Ruth Lilly Poetry prize (1993), the Academy of American Poets Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for Chickamauga(1996), and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Black Zodiac(1998). He has also received awards for his work in translation, notably the PEN Translation Prize for his translation of the Italian poet Eugenio Montale's The Storm and Other Things. Wright has also published translations of the Italian poet Dino Campana ( Orphic Songs, 1984).

For more complete biographical and professional information consult the Gale Literary Database on Contemporary Authors and the web site for the Pulitzer Prizes on the Internet, Wright's essay in The Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, the essay about Wright by George F. Buttrick in The Dictionary of Literary Biography, the volume The Point Where All Things Meet: Essays on Charles Wrightcollected and edited by Tom Andrews, and the biographical folder in Box 36. Also helpful are the two collections of critical essays and interviews about Wright published in Halflife: Improvisations and Interviews, 1977-1987, University of Michigan Press (1988) and Quarter Notes: Improvisations and Interviews, University of Michigan Press (1995).

Acquisition information:

This collection was acquired by the University of Virginia Library from Charles Wright, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, on October 5, 1998, and is unrestricted.

Arrangement:

This collection has been arranged in the following series and subseries:
Series I: Correspondence:
Subseries A: Alphabetical Correspondence arranged by last name of correspondent (Boxes 1-17)
Subseries B: Chronological Correspondence arranged by date (Boxes 17-21)
Series II: Manuscripts of Works by Charles Wright
Subseries A: Bound Volumes of Poetry & Translation Notebooks kept by Charles Wright (Boxes 21-23)
Subseries B: Poetry Manuscripts Arranged by Title of Book (Boxes 24-29)
Subseries C: Miscellaneous Manuscripts (Box 29)
Series III: Manuscripts by Other Authors arranged by the name of the author (Boxes 30-35)
Series IV: Miscellaneous Papers (Boxes 36-38)

Arranged alphabetically by last name of correspondent

arranged by date

arranged by the name of the author

Physical description:

38 Hollinger boxes, ca. 16 linear shelf feet