Wright will also read from his poetry at 8 p.m. Sept. 16.

Both events — which together launch the Fall 2004 Reading Series, sponsored by the English department and The Writing Program, also in Arts & Sciences — are free and open to the public and will take place in the Women's Building Formal Lounge.

Wright is the author of eight volumes of poetry, most recently Transfigurations (2000), which collects all of his previously published poems from such volumes as Soothsayers and Omens (1976), The Double Invention of Komo (1980), Elaine's Book (1988), Boleros (1991) and Transformations (1997). He has also written more than 30 plays.

Wright's many honors include fellowships from the MacArthur, Guggenheim and Hodder foundations; a 2000 Lannan Literary Award for Poetry; and the 62nd Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets.

"Jay Wright is one of the true hidden legislators of the world, as Shelley characterized the poets," said Steven Meyer, associate professor of English. "His world is our world — not one fragment or another, from one vantage point or another, but the world in its multiplicity.

"This New Mexican, African-American, Native American, Anglo, Scottish, Canadian New Englander mixes jazz, particle physics and Komo ritual because they all enter, reenter — transformative, transforming — into the composition of our New World. And he mixes them gorgeously, prodigiously."

Born in Albuquerque, N.M., Wright spent his teen years in San Pedro, Calif., where his father was a shipyard worker. After stints with the San Diego Padres baseball organization — playing in both the Arizona-Texas and California leagues — and with the Army, stationed in Germany, Wright studied comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Rutgers University.

He resides with his wife, Lois, in Vermont.

A reception will follow each event, and Wright's books will be available for purchase after the Sept. 16 poetry reading.

For more information, call 935-7130.