Gregory Pardlo

Gregory Pardlo CCAS’99 joined the faculty of the Department of English and Communication at Rutgers University–Camden in 2016. He holds an M.F.A. from New York University and an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Columbia University. In 2015, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Publications:

• Introduction to Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. James Weldon Johnson, Knopf, 2022

• Introduction to God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. James Weldon Johnson, Vintage Books, 2022

• “Inshallah Time,” Adi Magazine, May 2023. https://adimagazine.com/articles/inshallah-time-2/

Media Appearances/Speaking Engagements:

• “Paterfamilias,” Articulate, Season 1, Episode 3. https://articulateexperience.buzzsprout.com/2096411/12085400-pater-familias 1/20/23

• CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies “Reinventing Solidarity” Podcast. Episode 25. https://slu.cuny.edu/public-engagement/reinventing-solidarity-slu-podcast/ 1/11/22

• “250 Years of African American Poetry” w/ Kevin Young, Tracy K. Smith and Major Jackson. Radio Times, WHYY 90.9FM Philadelphia, 12/23/20. https://whyy.org/episodes/250-years-of-african-american-poetry/

Previous Organizations: 

• New York University Abu Dhabi

• PEN America

• Columbia University

Accomplishments:

• Poets and Scholars Summer Writers Retreat

• Dakar Translation Symposium

Upcoming Projects:

• Poetry collection: Spectral Evidence (forthcoming), poems. Knopf, New York: 2024

By maintaining a community of care, we seek to affirm all kinds of creators and provide a space for the mutual support of individual projects and practices. Visual artists, performers, musicians, storytellers, theorists, dancers, filmmakers, photographers, playwrights, and non-traditional students are especially encouraged to apply.  

This workshop does away with genre distinctions, encourage mutual exchange and transdisciplinarity, and acknowledge the truth that everyone who is engaged in crafting language is concerned with the language of craft. This model is designed to be inclusive, and we hope to bring creators at all stages of artistic development together.  

https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/poets-and-scholars-summer-writing-retreat-2023

In the hope of fostering a transatlantic dialogue, The Dakar Translation Symposium: Africa and its Diasporas brought together speakers and participants across four continents and four languages as a collaborative effort between the following institutions: Rutgers University, NYU Abu Dhabi, The University of Assane Seck University in Ziguinchor and Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, where the symposium was held from June 14 to June 19, 2022. 

This symposium was the first multinational, multidisciplinary, multilingual conference focused on the African diaspora. Panels captured the value of connected stories through multiple themes such as reconnecting identities, gender and diversity, nationhood, Black Lives Matter, and more, culminating in a Juneteenth memorial gathering on Gorée Island, the largest slave trading port on the African coast from the 15th to the 19th century. 

https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/event/dakar-translation-symposium-africa-and-her-diasporas

This program is part of a collaboration between the Institute and the Writers House at Rutgers University, Camden. Together, we curated the “Occasions for Gathering” Series, with a focus on creative expression and opportunities for discussion, group writing, reading, collaboration, and art making. In the “Writing Our Communities” Series spearheaded by Greg Pardlo, participants and speakers pondered together such questions as: How does a writer create authentic partnerships that center community? And how can writing with a community effect social change?

The most recent discussion, held in May, 2022 can be viewed here.