Phyliss Wright’s journey as a poet started in university days, when she edited a literary magazine in Colorado during the tumultuous sixties, where she also taught mountain climbing and piton-craft. She returned to writing poetry after a stint in the Marines as an air traffic controller. Poems are a way she explores the world and her own thoughts about life. Her work is shaped by her adventures in Afghanistan, Spain, Poland, and Siberia. But her formative work began in widowhood, when she served as a hospital director in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan, and then as a teacher in the United Arab Emirates. She wrote with the Kent State University Writers Group for over twenty years and still meets with them remotely. Recently she married Canadian, Eric Wright, who is a Northumberland writer. A new resident of Port Hope, she writes with the Cobourg Poetry Workshop, has two children, four grandchildren and a cat who came with her from the United Arab Emirates.
What a thoughtful interview! A welcome new voice to join Northumberland’s writing community. Thank you Phyliss, Gwynn and Felicity.