Charles Wright was born in 1935 in Pickwick Dam, East Tennessee, on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains. After what he has described as an uneventful childhood and education at various Episcopal schools in North Carolina, Wright studied history at Davidson College. After graduation he joined the army, serving four years, three of which were spent in Italy. Following what he has called a “Romantic” conversion to poetry in Italy, Wright returned to America in the early 1960s, and enrolled at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop where he studied under Donald Justice and with Mark Strand, among others. Wright’s poems began appearing in magazines and journals, and chapbook form from 1962, and his first book,
The Grave of the Right Hand, was published in 1970 by Wesleyan. In the following five…
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Citation: Johnson, Andrew. "Charles Wright". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 January 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12261, accessed 24 November 2024.]