Gregory Pardlo is an American poet, writer, and creative writing professor. 

His most recent collection of poetry, Spectral Evidence, was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Prize and the National Book Award. Digest, his second collection of poetry, was a winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His other works include Totem, winner of the American Poetry Review/ Honickman Prize, and Air Traffic, a memoir presented in essays. 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 served in the United States Marine Corps in 1987, managed a jazz club before he received his BA in English from Rutgers University-Camden. He also 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.

His honours include fellowships from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Cave Canem Foundation, the MacDowell Artist’s Colony, the Seaside Institute, and the Lotos Club Foundation.

Gregory divides his time between New York and the United Arab Emirates where he leads the creative writing department at NYU Abu Dhabi. He has also taught at Rutgers University-Camden, Columbia University, George Washington University, Medgar Evers College, The New School University, John Jay College, Hunter College, and NYU.

Pardlo is the translator of the full-length poetry collection Pencil Of Rays And Spike Mace by Danish poet Niels Lyngsø.

More from and about Gregory Pardlo: “Double Dutch”, “For Which It Stands”, “Palling Around”, “Raisin”, “The Wedding Planners”, “Written By Himself”, and “ZoSo” (Poetry Foundation) • “Antebellum”, “Atlantic City Sunday Morning”, “Copyright”, “Epistemology Of The Phone Booth”, “Gionartta”, “Gionartta 4”, “Gionartta: On Faith”, and “Title It Shotgun Wound” (poets.org) • “Allegory”, “Attachment: Atlantic City Pimp”,  “Corrective Lenses”, “Dramaturgy For The Bullet”, “For Which It Stands”, “Four Improvisations On Ursa Corregidora”, “Marginalia”, “Philadelphia, Negro”, “Problema 1”, “Problema 4”, “Problemata Poem”, “Tall Poppies”, and “Totem (Truong Chi)” (Best Poems Encylopaedia) • “Wishing Well” (The Pause)

Author image: Rémy Ngamije