C.D. Wright has published thirteen volumes of poetry, including two book-length poems, Deepstep Come Shining (1998) and Just Whistle (1993) as well as Cooling Time (2005), a book comprised of poetry, memoir and essay.

Her many honours include a Lannan Literary Award, a $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship and the $50,000 2009 Griffin International Poetry Prize for her latest US collection Rising, Falling, Hovering (Copper Canyon Press, 2008). She is a professor of English at Brown University, and edited Lost Roads Publishers for 30 years with her husband, poet Forrest Gander. She has collaborated on many projects with photographer Deborah Luster, most recently One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana (2003). She was State Poet of Rhode Island from 1995 to 1999.

Like Something Flying Backwards: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2007), her first UK edition, is expanded from Steal Away: Selected and New Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2003) and includes a substantial number of the poems from her Griffin International Prize-winning collection Rising, Falling, Hovering (Copper Canyon Press, 2008).