Charles Wright

Charles Wright. Poet. “Over the Blue Ridge, the whisperer starts to whisper in tongues. , Remembered landscapes are left in me , The way a bee leaves its sting….”, Charles Wright spent his formative years in Kingsport, and many of his poems feature the landscapes of the city and surrounding countryside. Wright’s poems are praised for their innovative style and powerful images, and he is regarded as one of the most influential American poets of the early twenty-first century. According to Wright himself, his work explores three primary themes” “language, landscape, and the idea of God.” He has authored many volumes and won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for Black Zodiac (1998). In 2014~15, he served as the United States Poet Laureate., Wright was born in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee, on August 25, 1935. His father, Charles Penzel Wright (1904~1972), later worked for Eastman Chemical Company and also operated a small construction business. His mother was Mary Winter Wright (1910~1964). Wright earned a degree in history from Davidson College in North Carolina. He went on to serve in the United States Army. While stationed in Italy, he began to craft poetry, and upon his return to the U.S., he studied creative writing at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. During the 1970s, he taught at the University of California, Irvine. He was a professor of English at the University of Virgin1a from 1983 until 2011.VV Sponsored by The City of Kingsport and ETSU’s English Honor Society . This historical marker was erected by The City of Kingsport and ETSU’s English Honor Society. It is in Kingsport in Sullivan County Tennessee