Wednesday, 6 p.m.: The Burchfield Penney Art Center presents its annual Charles E. Burchfield Award to Charles Wright, the current U.S. poet laureate, in recognition of his “outstanding achievements in the arts which express a commitment to environmental sustainability” at an awards event and dinner. Wright is the author of 24 poetry collections, two books of essays and three books of translation. His many international honors include the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, Bollingen Prize, Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation and the International Griffin Poetry Prize, as well as the 2008 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize in Poetry from the Library of Congress. He is perhaps best known for his “trilogy of trilogies” – spanning 30 years – that he has referred to as his “Appalachian Book of the Dead.” His most recent books include “Bye-and-Bye: Selected Late Poems” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012), winner of the 2013 Bollingen Prize, and “Caribou” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014). For ticket information, call 878-3739 or visit burchfieldpenney.org. Burchfield-Penney Art Center, 1300 Elmwood Ave.
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