Site Search

Jay Wright

Jay Wright is a poet and playwright whose work focuses largely on personal biography, African American historical experience, and spiritual quests. Mr. Wright has been praised by critic Harold Bloom as “an authentic poet of the Sublime…laboring to make us forsake easier pleasures for more difficult pleasures.”

Mr. Wright was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and played semi-professional baseball before studying literature at the University of California at Berkeley and Rutgers University. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, his poetry books include Boleros, The Double Invention of Komo, Dimensions of History, and Soothsayers and Omens.

Prizes, Awards & Fellowships
  • 2000 Lannan Literary Award for Poetry