Gregory Pardlo

His work has been praised for its “language simultaneously urban and highbrow… snapshots of a life that is so specific it becomes universal.”

• Name — Gregory Pardlo • Born — 24 November 1968 • Birthplace — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. • Education — Rutgers University, Camden (BA) New York University (MFA) Columbia University (MFA) City University of New York • Genre — Poetry • Awards — Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

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. His father, Gregory Pardlo Sr., is a former air traffic controller who participated in the air traffic controllers' strike of 1981. Pardlo entered the United States Marine Corps in 1987 and managed a jazz club before he received his BA in English from Rutgers University-Camden. He has an MFA from New York University as a New York Times Fellow in Poetry, an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia University; and a PhD in English from the Graduate Center of City University of New York. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Cave Canem Foundation, the MacDowell Artist's Colony, the Seaside Institute, the Lotos Club Foundation, and the City University of New York, as well as a translation grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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. 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. His poem "Wishing Well" appeared in The Best American Poetry 2014, guest edited by Terrance Hayes, following initial publication in Painted Bride Quarterly. Pardlo serves as an Associate Editor for the literary journal Callaloo. He has led writing workshops for the PEN American Center, the American Poetry Review / Young Voices Program, The Frost Place Conference, Callaloo Creative Writer's Workshop, and Jamaica’s Calabash International Literary Festival, among others. He is a teaching fellow at Columbia University. In 2016, Pardlo accepted a tenure-track faculty position with the English department at his alma mater, Rutgers University-Camden. He has taught at Columbia University, George Washington University, Medgar Evers College, The New School University, John Jay College, Hunter College, and NYU. As of 2023, Pardlo is a Visiting Associate Professor of Practice in Literature & Creative Writing at NYU Abu Dhabi. Pardlo's 2024 collection Spectral Evidence, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry.

• Collections • Totem (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), • Digest (Four Way Books, 2014), • Translations • Pencil of Rays and Spiked Mace (from the Danish of Niels Lyngsø; BookThug, 2004), • List of poems • Title — |Year — |First published — |Reprinted/collected • Allegory — 2021

• “Revisiting the Racial Mountain” (PEN American Center, 2010) • “A Way of No Way: Toward Constructing a Black Male Poetic” (Painted Bride Quarterly #75, 2006) • "'Hurrah for Schoelcher!'" (Drunken Boat 20, 2014) • Memoirs • Air Traffic: A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America (Knopf, 2018), ——————— • Bibliography notes