Project Overview

Keith Wright, 1947 - 1974

Keith Wright (Ronald K. Wright) was a poet and literary critic who co-founded the Department of English at Strathclyde in 1965. Born in Stockport in 1937, he came from a working class home to graduate in English from Oxford in 1958. He spent a scholarship year at Kentucky University in 1959 followed by a period at Wisconsin University. He then joined the new Department of English at Strathclyde, where he worked to the end of his life.

He published an accomplished longform poem, Western Time (1964), with Oxford University Press, and scholarly articles for Essays in Criticism and other journals on technical aspects of poetry. The legacy of his joint expertise in poetry and criticism lives on today in the BA in English & Creative Writing.

Three different funds were set up in his memory by family and members of the University. The Keith Wright Library Fund is now used to buy books for undergraduate students in English and Creative Writing. The Keith Wright Literary Prizes Fund pays for an annual prize in the Masters in Creative Writing programme at Strathclyde. And the Keith Wright Literary Prize Fund supports creative writing teaching Strathclyde, paying for a range of guest authors to visit and teach students.

These funds have helped hundreds, if not thousands, of students, and commemorate a pioneering and dedicated teacher, writer and scholar. As his friend and colleague Dr David Jago wrote when Dr Wright died:

"To read, to write, to lecture and teach, to listen to music and talks on the radio, to go to the cinema (in particular to watch the more fantastic creations of science fiction) – these were the many ways in which his time was spent…Each person whom he helped or influenced was largely unaware of the many other quarters in which he had also made a profound impression through his distinctive qualities of understanding.  As a teacher he was indefatigable, patiently encouraging and deepening the responses of students to literature."