The University of the South Founders’ Day ceremonies on Friday will include the conferral of an honorary degree upon U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Wright.
Leading up to the Convocation, Mr. Wright will read from his collection of work at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 16, in Guerry Auditorium on the Sewanee campus. A book signing in McGriff Alumni house will precede the reading from 2:30-3:30 p.m.
Mr. Wright is the author of more than 20 books of poetry and two volumes of criticism, and has won numerous awards, including the National Book Award, the PEN Translation Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
In 2011, he told PBS that the content of all of his poems, no matter their precise subject, is “language, landscape and the idea of God.”
Mr. Wright began teaching at the University of California, Irvine, and had a distinguished career at the University of Virginia as the Souder Family Professor of English.