Additional Papers of Charles Wright 1957-2003

Access and use

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
Phone: (434) 924-1037
Phone: (434) 243-1776
Fax: (434) 924-4968
Restrictions:

There are no restrictions.

Terms of access:

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred citation:

Additional Papers of Charles Wright, Accession #11437-b, -c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Summary

Language:
English
Preferred citation:

Additional Papers of Charles Wright, Accession #11437-b, -c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Background

Scope and content:

This addition to the papers of University of Virginia English professor and poet Charles Wright, Charlottesville, Virginia, consist of ca. 2,000 items (9 Hollinger boxes, 4 linear feet), ca. 1951-2003, chiefly correspondence and manuscripts, but also includes an honorary degree from Tusculum College, Greenville, Tennessee; a Who's Who certificate; poster; and a few photographs.

The correspondence series has three sub-groups, the first is the letters from Charles Wright to his family, chiefly his mother, 1958-1965, arranged chronologically. The second group consists of an alphabetical arrangement of correspondence to Wright from colleagues, friends, editors, and publishers. Some of the more frequent correspondents have been placed in their own separate folder. A third group contains correspondence concerning invitations to attend conferences, poetry readings, workshops, and other events, invitations to contribute to poetry magazines and anthologies, and requests for recommendations for students or colleagues, permissions to use his poems, and requests for Wright to judge poetry competitions.

The second series consisting of manuscripts and miscellaneous papers contains the manuscripts for Wright's books, Crepuscolo Americano, a selection of poems by Charles Wright and their translation, Negative Blue (2000), and A Short History of the Shadow. Other materials include photographs of Charles Wright with other individuals, two bound poetry notebooks belonging to Wright containing his original hand- written poetry, a folder of individual poems by Wright, the typescript for Uncollected Prose: Six Guys and a Supplement The Jordan Lectures 1999-2000 by Charles Wright, a Who's Who certificate for Wright, an honorary degree from Tusculum College, Greeneville, Tennessee awarded in 1986, and a typescript by Bonnie Costello, "Charles Wright, Giorgio Morandi and the Metaphysics of the Line."

includes: Gary Adelman, Chris Agee, Debra Allbery, George Amabile, John Amen (The Pedestal Magazine), American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Poetry Review

includes: Massimo Bacigalupo, Aaron Baker, David Baker, Edward L. Baker, Jim Barnes, Lee Bassett, Ann Beattie, Dan Becker, Molly Bendall, Eleanor Benedict, David Berman

includes: Helena Blavatsky, Michael Blumenthal, Robert Bly, Deborah Bogen, Don Bogen, Shane Book, Phillip Booth, David Bottoms, Robert Bowie, Lucie Brock-Broido, Ron Brooks, Olga Broumas, Stephen Ford Brown, Christopher Buckley, Esther and Don Burch, Michael A. Burke

includes: Christopher Cahill, Laurie Callahan, Ann Campanella, Anne Candelaria, Karen Cangialosi, Alberto Caramella, Italian poet (1928- ), Jennifer Casale, Martin Caseley, Vincent Castagnacci, John Casteen IV, Michael Chitwood, Nicholas Christopher, James A. Churchill, Jeffrey Cobb, Anne Coray, Bonnie Costello, Tony Crunk

includes: Mangalesh Dabral, Hindu poet (1948- ), Kyle Dargar, Davidson College, Samuel Davis, William V. Davis, Alfredo de [Beldi ?], Philip F. Deaver, Nicholas Delbanco, Matthew Deming, Robert D. Denham (Iron Mountain Press), Alfredo Giop DePalchi, Annette V. Dew, Garrett Doherty, Catherine Doty, Rita Dove, Lynn Dow, Stephen Dunn

includes: Allan D. Elder, Jessica Engels, Stephen Enniss, Robert Evans, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Chris Forhan, Harry Ford, Antonella Francini

includes: Jonathan Galassi, George Garrett, Ted Genoways, Monica Germino, Matthew and Debra Gildea, James S. Gilmore, III, Robert Giroux, Rebecca Givens, Elton Glaser, Cary Goldstein, Judith Gleason, Norman A. Graebner, [Jorie Graham], Loren Graham, [Jerrie] Graybill, Arthur Gregor, Eamon Grennan

includes: Donald Hall, Daniel Halpern, David Hamilton, Michael S. Harper, David Harris, Henry Hart, Kevin Hart, Richard Harteis, John Hawkes, Kathleen Hellen, Mike Heller, Peter R. Henry, Brenda Hillman, Gill Holland, John Hollander, Garrett Hongo

includes: Paul Jacobs, Mark Jarman, Nicholas Jenkins, Dan Jordan, Steve Juscik, Don Justice

includes: Marilyn Kallet, Megan Kaminski, Deborah Abbey Kelly, John Kenna, Sr., Robert Hunter Kennedy, III, Ruth Kessler, James Kimbrell, Doug King, Lauren Kingsley, Elizabeth Kirschner, Janet D. Knepper, Joseph W. Knittle, Del Kolve, Elena Kondracki, Nicole Krauss

includes: John Lang, David Lehman, Jill Leininger, Graham Leonard, Michael Levenson, Leatrice Lifshitz, James Longenbach, Jon Loomis, Richard Lyons

includes: J.D. McClatchy ("Sandy"), Davis McCombs, Jeanne McDonald, Kevin McFadden, Michael McFee, John McKernan, Lynne McMahon, Nellie Miller McNeil

includes: Gerard Malanga, Paul Mariani, Boyce F. Martin, Jr., Dave and Jynne Martin, Gary W. Mayne, Nahum Medalia, Stephen [Meffeni ?]

John Milbank, Wilmer Mills, Mary Molinary, Gil Moody, Diana Moreira, Robert Morgan, Mario Moroni, Richard B. Morris, Joshua Morison, Andrew Mulvania

includes: Patty Nicholas, Nancy Norelli, Debra Nystrom, Dennis O'Driscoll, Anthony Oldcorn, Chad Oness, Barbara Orlovsky

includes: Geraldine Palastrant, Jay Parini, Joseph Parisi, Kelli Rae Patton, Lu Peck, Jacqueline Penn, J. Perez, James E. Pitts, Stan Plumly, Gaetano Prampolini, Steve Price, Betsy Pritchard

includes: Robert Randolph, John Reed, Anne Reed, Melanie Rehak, David Remnick, David Rifenburgh, David Rigsbee, John Ridland, Robert Rogers, Steven H. Rubin, Michael Ryan, John Rybicki

includes: Ira Sadoff, Howard L. Salyer, M.D., Mary Ann Samyn, Leonard Sandridge, Sherod Santos, Tom Sheehan, Deborah Sheer, Bill Sheppard, Gary Short, Jane R. Shippen, Kennett L. Simmons, Maurya Simon, Lea Simonds, Jeffrey Skinner, Dave Smith, Dean Smith, Rod T. Smith, Ron Smith, Ellison A. Smyth, Thomas W. Solter, Willard Spiegelman

includes: Sophia Starnes, George M. Steele, Jean Stein, Rene Steinke, Lisa Stendig, Stefan Stoenesen, Anne Strachan, Dabney Stuart, Adrienne Su, David Summers, Elisabeth Swain, Mary Szybist, Larissa Szporluk

includes: John Tagliabue, Eleanor Ross Taylor, Phillip Taylor, Mac Test, Mike Theune, Harry Thomas, Nye Thuesen, [Hope ?] Tschopik, Michelle Turner

includes: University of Michigan Press, Helen Vendler, Claude Vidal, Robert C. Von Bargen

includes: M. Walsh, Rosanna Warren, Susan Weinberg, Susan Wheeler, Betsy Tice White, Karen Whitehill, Anne Whitehouse, Richard Wilbur, C.K. Williams, Lisa Williams, Amy Wilson, Karin Wittenborg, J. Howard Woolmer, Shannon Worrell, Jay Wright, Luke Wright, Moorhead Wright

includes: Mel Yoken, C. Dale Young, David Young, Gary Young, Karl P. Zender, Jan Zwicky

containing original hand-written poetry by Wright

containing original hand-written poetry by Wright

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 Wright collected 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:
These additions to the papers of Charles Wright were purchased from the poet by the University of Virginia Library in May 2002 and May 2003.
Arrangement:

This collection is organized in two basic series, Series I: Correspondence (Boxes 1-7), and Series II: Manuscripts and Miscellaneous Papers (Boxes 7-9). The correspondence series is arranged in three sub- groups. These consist of letters from Charles Wright to his family in chronological order (Boxes 1-2), an alphabetical arrangement of correspondence from colleagues, other poets, etc. (Boxes 2-6), and professional correspondence concerning speaking appearances, permissions, poetry readings, and other events arranged chronologically (Boxes 6-7).

Chronological

Alphabetical

Physical description:
This addition to the papers of University of Virginia English professor and poet Charles Wright, Charlottesville, Virginia, consists of ca. 2,000 items (9 Hollinger boxes, 4 linear feet).