The PSU Program in Creative Writing is pleased to host the poet Ed Roberson. This event is cosponsored by Black Studies. The in-person reading is free and open to the public; it will be livestreamed via the program's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PSUCreativeWriting.
Ed Roberson is the author of thirteen books of poetry, including MPH and Other Road Poems (Verge Books, 2021) and Asked What Has Changed (Wesleyan University Press, 2021). His most recent collection, Aquarium Works (Nion Editions, 2022), details his experiences as a diver and tankman at the Pittsburgh AquaZoo in the 1960s.
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Roberson also worked in the area’s steel mills, in an advertising graphics agency, and as a research assistant in limnology, studying inland and coastal freshwater systems on trips to Alaska and Bermuda. He later led a career as a special programs administrator at Rutgers University.
A Chicagoan since 2004, Roberson has taught at Columbia College, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University. He has also held posts at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the Cave Canem retreat for Black Writers. His many honors include the Jackson Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Roberson’s poetry is deeply informed by his engagement with the natural world, his interests in spirituality and visual art, and his lifelong travels, which include motorcycling across the United States and mountain climbing in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes.