Ed Roberson, a solo reading at McRoskey Mattress Co.

Join us as poet Ed Roberson returns to San Francisco from his home in Chicago, this time for a featured solo reading in the third-floor loft at McRoskey Mattress Co., on Market at Gough. The program is co-presented by The Poetry Center and The Green Arcade, in conjunction with Nion Editions, and with thanks to our host, McRoskey Mattress Co.

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 served as a Holloway Lecturer in Poetry and Poetics at the University of California, Berkeley, and as a faculty member 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.

Video:
Ed Roberson, reading with Michael Palmer for The Poetry Center: October 11, 2014 [https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/poetrycenter/bundles/239450]