C. D. Wright has published seven collections of poetry, the first in 1976 and the most recent in 1992. Her poems have appeared in Field, Ironwood, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, and TriQuarterly, among many other magazines and journals. Her work has also appeared in several anthologies. Her awards include two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships (1981 and 1988), the Witter Bynner Prize for Poetry from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1986), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1987), a fellowship from the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute (1987), a General Electric Award for Younger Writers (1988), a Whiting Writers Award (1989), and a Rhode Island Governor's Award for the Arts (1990).

Wright's given name is Carolyn, but she began using her initials to distinguish herself from the poet Carolyne Wright, who started publishing at approximately the same time as she did. Wright was born on 6 January 1949 in the Ozark town of Mountain Home, Arkansas. Her...