Gregory Pardlo

Gregory Pardlo (born 1968) is an American poet, writer, and professor. His poems, reviews, and translations have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Poet Lore, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, and on National Public Radio. His work has been praised for its “language simultaneously urban and highbrow… snapshots of a life that is so specific it becomes universal.”

Gregory Pardlo’s first volume of poems, Totem, was chosen by Brenda Hillman as the winner of the 2007 American Poetry Review / Honickman First Book Prize, distributed by Copper Canyon Press. The manuscript for Totem was also a semifinalist for the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, a finalist for the National Poetry Series, and a finalist for the inaugural Essence Magazine Literary Award in Poetry. Pardlo is the translator of the full-length poetry collection Pencil of Rays and Spike Mace by Danish poet Niels Lyngsø.

Life
Born in Philadelphia, Pardlo grew up in Willingboro, New Jersey. His younger brother is Robbie Pardlo, an American musician formerly of R&B group City High.

Gregory Pardlo received his B.A. in English from Rutgers University, Camden. In 2001, he earned his M.F.A. from New York University as a New York Times Fellow in Poetry. He has been the recipient of additional fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Cave Canem Foundation, the MacDowell Artist's Colony, the Seaside Institute, the Lotos Club Foundation, and City University of New York, as well as a translation grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Most recently, Pardlo’s poem “Written by Himself” appeared in The Best American Poetry 2010 anthology series edited by David Lehman and Amy Gerstler following initial publication in The American Poetry Review.

Pardlo serves as an Associate Editor for the literary journal Callaloo and as a contributing editor for Painted Bride Quarterly literary magazine. He has led writing workshops for the PEN American Center, American Poetry Review / Young Voices Program, the Frost Place Conference, Callaloo Creative Writer’s Workshop, and Jamaica’s Calabash International Literary Festival, among others.

Pardlo is Assistant Professor of English in the Creative Writing department at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He has previously taught at Medgar Evers College, NYU, The New School University, John Jay College, Hunter College, and NYU.

Awards and Honors

 * 2010 Selection, Best American Poetry 2010 for "Written by Himself"
 * 2008 Finalist, Essence Magazine Literary Award in Poetry for Totem
 * 2008 Selection, Coldfront Magazine Best First Books of 2007 for Totem
 * 2008 Nominee, Pushcart Prize
 * 2007 Winner, American Poetry Review / Honickman First Book Prize in Poetry for Totem
 * 2007 Finalist, National Poetry Series for Totem
 * 2007 Semifinalist, Academy of American Poets Walt Whitman Award for Totem
 * 2005 Finalist, Cave Cavem Book Prize
 * 2004 Winner, Lotos Club Foundation Award for Creative Writing
 * 2003 Nominee, Pushcart Prize
 * 2001 Honorable Mention, New Millennium Writings Prize

Full-length Poetry Collections

 * Totem (Copper Canyon Press, 2007)
 * Critical attention:
 * Poetry Foundation "Harriet" Blog
 * The Constant Critic
 * Post No Ills (audio)
 * "Lots and Lots of Neat" blog

Translations

 * Pencil of Rays and Spiked Mace (from the Danish of Niels Lyngsø; BookThug, 2004)

Anthologized Publications

 * “Written by Himself”, The Best American Poetry 2010 (Scribner, 2010)
 * “Marginalia”, So Much Things to Say: 100 Poets from the First Ten Years of the Calabash International Literary Festival (Akashic Books, 2010)
 * “Double Dutch” From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great (Persea Press, 2009)
 * “Man Reading in Bed by a Window with Bugs”, Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (University of Georgia Press, 2009)
 * “Winter After the Strike”, Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade (University of Michigan Press, 2006)
 * “Arsonist” and “Future as Evaporation”, Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art (Third World Press, 2002)
 * “Harvest: A Line Drawing”, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam (Three Rivers Press, 2001)

Selected Prose

 * “Revisiting the Racial Mountain” (PEN American Center, 2010)
 * “A Way of No Way: Toward Constructing a Black Male Poetic” (Painted Bride Quarterly #75, 2006)