Carolyne Wright is an acclaimed American poet, memoirist, translator, and Fulbright scholar whose work bridges continents, cultures, and languages. A Seattle native, she studied with the legendary poet Elizabeth Bishop and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from Syracuse University.
A distinguished translator of Bengali, Spanish, and Portuguese literature, Wright spent four years in Kolkata and Dhaka on Fulbright and Indo–U.S. Sub-Commission fellowships, collecting and translating the work of Bengali women poets. Her acclaimed translations include The Game in Reverse: Poems of Taslima Nasrin, Another Spring, Darkness: Selected Poems of Anuradha Mahapatra, and Majestic Nights: Love Poems of Bengali Women. She has received numerous honors, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Witter Bynner Foundation, and multiple Fulbright awards, most recently serving as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil (2022–2024).
The author of sixteen books of poetry, memoir, essays, and translation, Wright’s recent works include Masquerade: A Memoir in Poetry, This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems—whose title poem received a Pushcart Prize and appeared in The Best American Poetry—and Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace, a landmark anthology celebrating women’s voices and labor. Her poems and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The London Review of Books, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, and many other leading literary journals and anthologies.
A Contributing Editor for the Pushcart Prize and an inspiring teacher of creative writing, Carolyne Wright has taught at Harvard University, Wellesley College, Emory University, and numerous literary festivals and conferences worldwide. She currently teaches at Seattle’s Richard Hugo House and continues to explore poetry as a means of cultural dialogue, memory, travel, and human connection.