Teacher, poet true to Ozark roots

Arkansas-born poet Carolyn "C.D." Wright was known for her investigative journalistic style of poetry, and she often spent hours inspecting topics she wrote about.

But she also returned to her native roots when writing about the Ozarks and its people.

Wright, 67, died Jan. 12 in her Barrington, R.I., home, according to Kelly Forsythe, Wright's publisher with Cooper Canyon Press of Port Townsend, Wash.

Wright was born in Mountain Home on Jan. 6, 1949, and graduated from Harrison High School. Her father, Ernie Wright, was a probate court judge, and her mother, Alyce Collins Wright, was a court reporter.

Wright earned a bachelor of arts in French from what was then known as Memphis State University in 1971 and a master of fine arts degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1976.

She published more than a dozen books.

Wright joined the faculty of Brown University in Providence, R.I., in 1983 and twice served as the director of the literary arts graduate program.

In 2004, she was awarded the John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant -- known as a "genius grant" -- and was given a five-year, $500,000 fellowship to write.

Wright won numerous awards, including the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Whiting Award and the Lannan Literary Award. She was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2010 for her collection One With Others.

Wright is survived by her husband, Forrest Gander, whom she married in 1983; her son, Brecht Gander; and a brother, Warren Wright of Fayetteville.

NW News on 01/28/2016

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