C.D. Wright Lectures on Writing

We don’t often publish poetry here, but this is an exception, in tribute to the late C.D. Wright, who taught us all, no matter the genre:

C.D. Wright

C.D. Wright Lectures on Writing
By Beth Taylor

Prospect/Refuge
is a theory, the poet said,
a key tension in life, and art —
the urge to look forward,
toward possibility,
which, in finding it,
is a kind of refuge,
the embrace of comfort,
like coming home
to the warmth and colors,
the particular furniture and clothes
of one’s own life.

This is what writing is, she said,
and any art –
seeking a story in an image
that may be from the past,
or right now in a view,
or a hazy dream –
each a kind of homecoming
once it is found,
rendered anew,
honoring and protecting,
becoming a refuge.

In honor of C.D. Wright,  1949-2016

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Beth Taylor is Co-Director of Brown University’s Nonfiction Writing Program and author of The Plain Language of Love and Loss: A Quaker Memoir