Charles Wright named U.S. Poet Laureate

I've never even heard of poet Charles Wright!! But I understand that he has recently been named the next U. S. Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress. 

I came across an online article on the PBS website titled Charles Wright named U.S. Poet Laureate by Mike Melia. It's a lengthy article filled with a lot of information about Charles Wright. In the article, Melia writes the following:

Charles Wright, a master of capturing landscape and meditation in verse, has been named the next Poet Laureate of the United States by the Library of Congress. It is the latest in a long list of honors and awards for Wright, who is considered one of the greatest American poets of his generation. 

At times self-effacing, Wright shies away from the public eye and was reluctant to take the post. “My wife kept nudging me to do it and also others have said, ‘You know, you should do it.’ And I hadn’t done it before when it was offered to me and I always felt sort of bad about that — that I snuck into the shadows where I am more comfortable,” Wright said to Jeffrey Brown in a phone conversation on Wednesday. “I’m going to try to pull up my socks here and see what happens.”

Wright will succeed Natasha Trethewey as the Library’s 20th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. “For almost 50 years, his poems have reckoned with ‘language, landscape, and the idea of God,’” said Librarian of Congress, James Billington. “Wright’s body of work combines a Southern sensibility with an allusive expansiveness, for moments of singular musicality.”

Click on the top link to read the full story. You can even listen to an audio interview of Charles Wright speaking with Jeffrey Brown

Charles Wright's poetry sure does sound intriguing! I'm curious to read his poetry now. He's won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.