Charlie Wright, Publisher of Wave Books, established the Bagley Wright Lecture Series on Poetry in memory of his late father, the businessman and philanthropist Bagley Wright.
The Lecture Series seeks to provide leading poets with the opportunity to explore in depth their own thinking on the subject of poetry and poetics, and through financial and logistical support, to arrange for the delivery of several lectures that result from these investigations.
A main goal of the Series is to provide mid-career poets with the opportunity to explore subjects of deep interest to them in a way that would not otherwise be possible without this support. Another goal of the Series is to create lasting works of criticism and poetics that will help current practitioners in the art of poetry, along with scholars and general readers, to more fully understand poetry as it is written and read in our time.
Lectures will be delivered publicly in partnership with several institutions, including the Library of Congress, New York University, Harvard University, the Poetry Foundation, and Seattle Arts and Lectures, as well as a number of other venues.
The following poets have been named as Lecturers for the upcoming two years of the Series:
Dorothea Lasky, Fall 2013
Joshua Beckman, Spring 2014
Timothy Donnelly, Fall 2014
Terrance Hayes, Spring 2015
Srikanth Reddy, Fall 2015
Rachel Zucker, Spring 2016
For the current lecturer’s schedule, click here.