EdÌýRoberson

  • Author & Poet, Guggenheim Fellow
  • 2022 SPEAKER
Ed Roberson

EdRoberson is the author of twelve books of poetry, most recently MPH and Other Road Poems (Verge Books, 2021) and Asked What Has Changed (Wesleyan ³Ô¹ÏÍø Press, 2021). A former special programs administrator at Rutgers ³Ô¹Ï꿉۪s Cook Campus, Roberson has lived in Chicago since 2004 and is an emeritus professor in Northwestern ³Ô¹Ï꿉۪s MFA creative writing program. He has also held posts at the ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Chicago, Columbia College, the ³Ô¹ÏÍø of California, Berkeley, and the Cave Canem retreat for black writers. His honors include the Jackson Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, and the African American Literature and Culture Association’s Stephen Henderson Critics Award. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Roberson has worked as a limnologist’s assistant (conducting research on inland and coastal fresh water systems in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and in Bermuda), as a diver for the Pittsburgh Aquazoo, in an advertising graphics agency, and in the Pittsburgh steel mills.