Write place, write time

Editor’s note: Carolyne Wright might not be a Central Virginia person most of the time, but as a visiting writer in residence at Lynchburg College, we could at least claim her for a semester.
After years of traveling the world, Carolyne Wright has learned to pack lightly.
  “I come here with a minimum of possessions. Two suitcases, (things) from home I need, like my coffee,” says Wright, a poet, writer and translator who is Lynchburg College’s Thornton Writer in Residence this semester.
The poet’s office, in LC’s Carnegie Hall, is full of shelving units, but only two shelves are needed to hold her files, books and other belongings.
“I work very well in this sort of stripped down, Spartan … condition,” she says. “When I’m back home in Seattle, because most of my stuff (is there), I can get
diverted.”
Wright’s tenure at the college comes to an end this week. As the Thornton Writer in Residence, she taught an eight-week poetry workshop once a week. Because the position is a residency, Thornton Writers usually have a light teaching load so they have time to write, she says.
“Whenever I’m in a new place, I’m inspired to write,” she says.
Most days, Wright works from home in the mornings before walking to campus for lunch. Then it’s back to work, in her office, until dinnertime.
“I’ve got this little routine worked out, and it’s very productive,” she says. “It’s kind of outwardly very dull, but inwardly very exciting.”
She’s also used her time here to catch up on other projects.
In addition to the several memoirs she’s writing about her time abroad, Wright has just finished translating and proofing a book of poetry, “Majestic Nights: Love Poems of Bengali Women.”
It’s a project she began in the ’80s, when she spent four years in Bangladesh collecting and translating the work of Bengali women poets and writers. Her trip was funded by Indo-U.S. Subcommission and Fulbright Senior Research fellowships.
Wright says she translated some 600 poems during her time there and since, and over the years, those translations have appeared in other books and literary
magazines.
Translating has always captivated Wright’s interest.
“I knew it would teach me something about poetry. When you’re translating, you are reading very, very closely,” she says. “You have to trans-create this poem in your own native language and make it succeed in English as much as it would if it had been originally written (that way), while keeping the voice.”
Wright’s own literary voice began when she was a high school student in Seattle. She says poetry came naturally to her, but she later began writing fiction and nonfiction prose as well.
“I like to tell stories, and go on and on and on,” she says. “In order to tell a story in a complete way, I have to turn to prose.”
Growing up, “I knew I wanted to write, and I guess I sort of knew I wanted to teach,” she says. “I had a high school Spanish teacher who gave people in the class the opportunity to lead the class once.
“I really enjoyed that.”
And she still does.
“Every class is different. There’s always an interesting dynamic,” she says. “Every class is a continuation or extension of other classes I’ve taught. It’s almost like every student I’ve had is a member of one big class.”
One of those students is Lynchburg resident David Griffith, who took Wright’s poetry workshop at LC this semester.
“She’s done a wonderful job of exposing us to different forms and formats,” he says. “(They) show that poetry is art, and a lot of it is very flexible. She’s shown us a lot of textbook examples, but (will) also turn around and show us a piece that breaks the rules.”
Griffith, an English major, says he could see the impact Wright’s traveling has had on her work.
“Through that, she’s developed a unique style that I haven’t been accustomed to,” he says.
“She’s very open-minded, very polite, very understanding. She gives some really intuitive advice on how to become better writers.”
Wright earned her undergraduate degree in English and fine arts from Seattle University. She later studied Latin American literature at Universidad de Chile and Spanish literature at the University of Washington before earning her master’s in English and creative writing at Syracuse University. She also has a doctorate from Syracuse.
Over the years, she has held creative writing posts at universities all over the country, including Emory University, the University of Wyoming, Sweet Briar College, The College of Wooster and Ashland University.
She’s also distinguished herself as an award-winning writer.
Her last book, “A Change of Maps,” won the 2007 Independent Book Publishers’ Bronze Award, was nominated for the L.A. Times’ Book Award and was a finalist for both the Idaho Prize and the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award of the Poetry Society of America.
She’s also received awards from the Poetry Society of America, the Seattle Arts Commission, the Before Columbus Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts.
“Majestic Nights” will be her 13th book.
Through her teaching, Wright hopes to inspire people to fall in love with poetry.
“Most people are kind of afraid of poetry,” she says. “But then if you can make it accessible … (and make them) have fun reading it and writing it, then I think I’ve done something worth doing.”
When she leaves Lynchburg Saturday, Wright will get back to work immediately as Seattle University’s Distinguished Northwest Writer in Residence, which she says will require work similar to what she’s done here.
She says she loves these types of visiting teaching
positions.
“I get to come in and get to meet a number of new people in a different area of the country than I’m generally in,” she says. “I feel as if I’m traveling, but at the same time, I’m here.”