Jay Wright (poet)

Jay Wright (born May 25, 1935) is an African-American poet, playwright, and essayist. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he currently lives in Bradford, Vermont. Although his work is not as widely known as other American poets of his generation, it has received considerable critical acclaim. Wright's work is emblematic of what the Guyanese-British writer Wilson Harris has termed the "cross-cultural imagination." Following his receiving the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 2005, Wright is recognized as one of the principal contributors to poetry in the early 21st century.

Before embarking on his writing career, Wright played professional baseball, mostly with the Mexicali Eagles of the Arizona-Texas League, and the Fresno Cardinals of the California League.

After his baseball career, Wright studied comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and Rutgers University. In the 1960s, he befriended fellow African-American author Henry Dumas and later wrote the introduction to Dumas's Play Ebony, Play Ivory: Poetry.

Over the years Wright has been poet in residence at Yale University as well as the University of Dundee and historically black colleges and universities such as Talladega College, Tougaloo College, Texas Southern University.

• 1986 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (or "Genius") Fellowship
• 1996 Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets
• 2001 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award, Transfigurations: Collected Poems
• 2005 Bollingen Prize in Poetry, becoming the first African-American writer to be so honored
• 2006 American Book Award Lifetime Achievement Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.