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Franz Wright won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Wright will lecture about his poetry 8 p.m. Monday at Giffels Auditorium at Old Main.

Wright wins Pulitzer

Visiting professor recognized for poetry

By: Yvette Scorse

Posted: 4/7/04

As a writer, Franz Wright had a lot to live up to.

His father, James, won the Pulitzer Prize for Collected Poems in 1972 when Wright was 19 years old.

Thirty-two years later, Wright received the news of his career when the Pulitzer Prize winners were announced Monday. Wright has followed in his father's footsteps, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Walking to Martha's Vineyard, published in October 2003. Wright is an interim poetry professor with the UA His permanent home is in Massachusetts.

He will speak at 8 p.m. Monday at Giffels Auditorium. The lecture is presented by the program in creative writing and translation and the English department.

According to the definition given to Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry, the book is "a distinguished volume of original verse."

He received a $10,000 prize and the prestige that comes along with being one of the few winners of a Pulitzer Prize.

According to pultizer.org, the prestige of the award surpasses the importance of the cash prize for most winners.

Every year, Pulitzer juries judge about 800 books in five different categories. The juries make three recommendations per category and three finalists are named.

New York Times author Stephen Burt said the poems of Wright's prize-winning work "ask, incessantly, why people want to kill themselves or use up their lives; why Wright, in particular, once did; and [why in his own estimation] he no longer does."

The book also explores Wright's religious experiences.

Wright wrote The Beforelife, which was published in 2001, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer.

Joseph Pulitzer established the Pulitzer Prizes in 1904 through his will with an endowment to Columbia University of $2 million to go toward its School of Journalism and the prizes.

Pulitzer originally named only 13 awards in his will to be given in journalism, drama, education and traveling scholarships.

The Pulitzer Prize board later increased the number of awards, and poetry was added to the list in 1922.

Winners receive their prizes at a luncheon in May at the Low Library at Columbia University.

As set forth by Pulitzer, the president of the university presents the prizes.