James Wright

James Wright (James Arlington Wright) was born in Ohio, United States, on December 13, 1927. His parents were simple working-class people with limited education and low social standing. However, this did not hinder his development; on the contrary, it served as the springboard for his poetic career. After returning from Japan, where he served in the U.S. Army in 1946, he enrolled at Kenyon College in Ohio, graduating in 1952. In 1953, he married his former classmate and love of his life, nurse Liberty Kardules, with whom he had two sons, Franz (1953) and Marshall (1958). Together, they traveled to Vienna, where Wright was introduced to the works of Theodor Storm and Georg Trakl, having previously studied American and Russian literature extensively. Upon returning to the U.S. in 1954, he continued his academic career at the University of Washington, eventually earning his Doctorate. Three years later, in 1957, he published his first poetry collection, The Green Wall, which won him the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award and a position as a Doctor at the University of Minnesota. His next poetry collection, Saint Judas, followed in 1959 and was awarded the Ohioana Book Award three years later, in 1962, the same year he divorced. During this period, Wright experienced intense psychological stress but also refined his writing, moving from the lyrical style of the previous generation to a more visual and freer form. His third poetry collection, The Branch Will Not Break, published in 1963, served as a significant poetic counterbalance to Beat poetry and became one of the most important works in America during the 1960s. Following this shift in his poetic style, his works were published in literary magazines and poetry anthologies, while he continued teaching at Macalester College and Hunter College. In 1967, he met Edith Ann Runk (Annie), whom he married. They settled in New York and frequently traveled and explored Europe. His new wife was a strong support for him, helping him heal old wounds and improve as a person. In 1969, he published his fourth poetry collection, Shall We Gather At The River, and in 1972, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his collected poetic works, published about a year earlier under the title Collected Poems. In the following years, he published three more poetry collections: Two Citizens (1973)—the title implying himself and his wife Annie—Moments of the Italian Summer (1976), and To a Blossoming Pear Tree (1977). In 1979, after returning to the U.S., Wright was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. He passed away in March 1980, and his funeral was held in the same church where he married Annie. His final poetry collection, This Journey, was published posthumously in 1982.