Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

Jeffrey Cyphers Wrightis an American lyric poet, writer and publisher.Wright graduated from West Virginia University before coming to New York. Beginning in 1976, Wright studied withTed BerriganandAlice NotleyatSt. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery.He also studied withAllen GinsbergatBrooklyn Collegeand received an MFA in poetry from there.

Biography

Poetry and performance

In the late 1970s Wright performed atPS122's avant-garde-arama. He read often at St. Mark's Poetry Project between 1979 and 1990 and served a three-year term on the Project Board of Directors. In 1996, Wright performed in twoMuseum of Modern Art's poetry series events curated by the late philanthropist and poetry activistLita Hornick.In the millennial years, he hosted poetry events at theBowery Poetry Club,La MaMa E.T.C.,KGB and other East Village venues. In 2013, Wright wrote the poetry-playClubhouse on East 13th Street,which was performed at La MaMa E.T.C. and elsewhere. In 2014 he and Lili White completed a 40-minute video about a community garden issue that documented his eponymous performanceThe Key Ceremony.As a poet in residence at Howl! Happening, Wright produced The Fun Doctrine tv seriesHowl Happening.

Wright is the author of 18 books of poetry. His poems also appear in twelve anthologies includingBest American Poetry 2023from Scribnerhttps:// bestamericanpoetry /,Out of This Worldfrom Crown Press andThus Spake the Corpsefrom Black Sparrow Press. He is well known as an impresario, organizing artistic parties and events at La Mama, Howl! Happening. He is also a long-time member of Brevitas, a community of invited poets who email short poems to each other and publish a periodic selection. Wright designed a cover for one their 15th anthology[1].TheBrooklyn Railpublished a suite of his poems in 2011.

Publishing

In 1978 Wright started Hard Press[2],where he published 80 postcards by different artists and poets. A selection of the postcards were included in the bookA Secret Location on the Lower East Side,and were displayed at New York Public Library. Hard Press also published five books.

From 1986 until 2001 Wright published 80 issues ofCover Magazine, The Underground National,[3]with the help of estimable artist and writer contributors including Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Steve Mumford, Sue Scott, Judd Tully, and John Yau. The magazine covered a broad range of arts and culture, profiling many important artists in advance of their heyday. Among others, Wright andCovereditors coveredSteve Buscemi,Penny Arcade,Chakaia Booker,Andrea Zittel,Dawoud Bey,Sarah McLachlan,The Cranberries,and artists such asAndres Serrano,Vik MunizandDoug and Mike Starn.The magazine's interviews withPaul Bowles,William Burroughs,andRufino Tamayoare among their last.Coveris archived atFales LibraryatNew York University.[4]

Wright started Live Mag!Live Magin 2007 in response to an invitation fromBob Holmanto create an event at the Bowery Poetry Club. Wright's idea was to unite poetry publication in multiple forms: performance, electronic, and print. The magazine is a curation of current poetry and visual art and hosts events regularly.

Criticism

Wright's art criticism has appeared inARTnews,Art and Antiques,ArtNexusandThe Brooklyn Rail.In 2008 the monthlyRailinstituted his column of poetry reviews called "Rapid Transit".Coverand Wright'sLive Mag!host arts reviews by Wright and other contributors. Literary criticism also appears inRain Taxiand theAmerican Book Review. '

Collage

After 2007, Wright exhibited collages in group shows at Tribes Gallery, 532 Gallery (Thomas Jaeckel, Director) Turtle Point Press, and others. He has a collage inThe Unbearables Big Book of Sex(Autonomedia, 2011) and has contributed poems and collages to online venues, includingBicycle Review,Beet,Reading Dance,andTool: A magazine.In 2010, his visual and performance work was the subject of the solo, participatory exhibitThe Good Outlawat AC Institute.[5]In an A-List preview of the show,The Villagerdescribed Wright as a "master collagist."A brief videodocumentaryof the opening event encapsulates the performative and visual experience.[6]Wright showed collages in "Paper View," a two-person exhibit with sculptor Ga Hae Park at Tribes Gallery in 2011.Capital One Bank extended the run by hanging Wright's work in its East 3rd Street branch during the Occupy Wall Street protests. Wright co-curated "Occupy the Walls" at AC Institute in Chelsea, NYC. Savitra D., Bob Holman, and others participated in readings and events associated with the December two-week show of protest posters.Steve Dalichinsky published Wright's collage in his 2013 curated online exhibit"Visual Poetry".

Critical response

In 1980, aVillage Voicearticle labeled Wright's poetry "street smart."His performance carried crowds and the words had sticking power with which he won a following. Wright has performed atBob Holman'sBowery Poetry Club.Holman has stated that "Jeff did not just read poems, he lived them.".Joe Maynard devoted a page inBeetto Wright, including a collage, several poems, and a mini review, claiming that "Wright is a terrific poet."[7]Steve Dalachinskyin reviewing the volume in theBrooklyn Railwrites "Jeff Wright’s book of sonnets,Triple Crown(Spuyten Duyvil), replete with Wright’s collages, offers us a panoramic peek into the sometimes-hyper brain of a mad poet. "And among the accolades forTriple Crown,inRain Taxi,"While most contemporary New York School poetry seems aimed at like-minded, coterie hipsters, Wright’s poems ostensibly are directed (as were Shakespeare’s sonnets) to a single ear." According toSparrow,Wright "invented New Romanticism" in the early 1990s. A poetic movement that was "joyful, communal, erotic, and spontaneous."

Awards

Wright received a Kathy Acker Award for writing and publishing in 2016. In 2023, he won the James Tate Poetry Prize.

Bibliography

• TranslustFive Fingers Press, 1977.
• Employment of the Apes(ISBN093887800X), Chronic Editions, 1981.
• ChargesRemember I Did This For You Press, 1982.
• Two(withYvonne Jacquette). Toothpaste Press 1982.
• Take Over(introduction by Allen Ginsberg). Toothpaste Press, 1983.
• All in All(preface by Alice Notley). Gull Press, 1986.
• Walking on WordsVendetta Press, 1996.
• Drowning LightNew York: Soncino Press,1992.
• FlourishNew York: Soncino Press, 2004.
• The Name PoemsNew York: Sisyphus Press, 2005.
• October CenterfoldNew York: Dummy Books, 2009.
• Triple Crown Sonnets(ISBN978-1-881471-23-3). New York: Spuyten Duyvil, 2013
• Blue Lyre(ISBN978-1-939929-96-9). New York: Dos Madres Press, 2018
• Party Everywhere(ISBN978-0-9760793-9-2).New York: Xanadu Press 2014, expanded edition issued 2020
• Doppelgängster(ISBN 978-1-952335-56-7) MadHat Press, 2023
• Fuel for Love(ISBN 978-1-912963-45-4) Survision Books, 2024

External links

• Live Mag! NYC
• VideoonYouTube
• Bovoso, Carole, "Voice Choices,"The Village Voice(July 16, 1980)
• The Brooklyn Rail(June, 2008)
• Fales Library Special Collections: Cover
• St.-Lascaux review of The Good Outlaw
• Beet, March 10,2010
• The VillagerVol. 79, No. 50, May 19-25, 2010
• Rain Taxi