Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Wright interspersed poetry and humor before a capacity crowd of more than 50 people at the University Club Monday evening.

In an installment of the Writers in the Library Series, Wright read several of his works, including “Is,” “The Woodpecker Pecks But the Whole Does Not Appear” and “Relics.”

Wright is a revered poet, and his poetry has earned the highest accolades. In 1998, Wright won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, which is one of the highest honors in the field.

Jacob Bell, senior in theatre, said that the reading gave him a deeper perspective into Wright’s work.

“I found it very important to see Mr. Wright as a real human being, instead of just words on a page,” he said. “I feel like his work became three dimensional to me. It really flushed him out as a person. His work is obscure sometimes. Hearing him read really helps it come alive.”

Bell said that the reading helped him with his own creative writing.

“Hearing a poet speak reinforces the sense of sound in poetry,” he said. “You can really hear why a poet makes certain decisions and why his work is beautiful.”

Wright was born in Pickwick Dam, Tenn., and he lived briefly in Knoxville. He currently is a professor of English at the University of Virginia.

“I think you could call him the Robert Frost or T.S. Eliot of the South,” R.B. Morris, Hodges Library writer-in-residence, said. “His poetry retains the good Southern heart and is in touch with the nature and culture of the South.”

Felix Adam, junior in anthropology, said he enjoyed Wright’s humorous remarks.

“I liked his sense of humor,” Felix Adam, junior in anthropology, said. “He’s a bit of an oddball, which I like.”

Wright joked about the echo his microphone occasionally produced whenever he said a word that started with the letter “P.”

“Everything is a critic,” he said after reading a poem filled with “P” sounds. “Sometimes, that’s not a bad thing. This microphone is a critic, and it is telling me to stop writing so many ‘Ps’ in my verses. And I am gonna listen to it.”

Wright then told a story about when he went to hear W.H. Auden, who some consider to the most influential British poet of the 20th Century, read at the University of Iowa in 1961.

Chris Norvell, undecided freshman, said that this was his first poetry reading. He came to the reading with his friends, and he said he was glad that he attended.

“I didn’t really know what to expect because I didn’t know the author personally. I never had read any of his work,” he said. “I definitely will read some of his work now.”