The Community of Writers is honored to present a five-week intensive series on the life and work of poet CD Wright taught by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Forrest Gander and Griffin Poetry Prize-winning poet Brenda Hillman.
C.D.Wright’s poetry is some of the mo
st beloved and legendary work of our literary era. She was a uniquely original writer but she was also part of— and helped to form— a vast unfolding literary community from the 1980s until her untimely death in 2016, traditions that included Elliptical, Documentary, Southern, Experimental, and Narrative Poetries; in addition, she was a master of the short lyric and the long poem. Aside from the visceral pleasures of reading her work, what do we have to learn from a writer with such a wide range of approaches to the poem? And how did she come to be the expansive writer we know? Poets Forrest Gander and Brenda Hillman will guide participants through an overview of Wright’s extraordinary writing. The course will be designed for those who know Wright’s work already, as well as for those encountering her poetry for the first time.