#greg pardlo

[writingactivism]

Pratt's Women Writers of Color Reading Room and the Pratt MFA in Writing would be honored by your presence at an evening of readings and discussion featuring 2015 Pulitzer Prize Winner Greg Pardlo, Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang, and Poet/Photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Thursday, February 4th, 7pm. Alumni Reading Room, Pratt Library, 3rd Floor. This event is free and open to the public.

[lithub]

Finding life-changing books in the most unlikely places; a reading list from Bruce Bauman. | Literary Hub

On favorite reading experiences and the “great hunger”of first-person narration: part two of Paul Holdengraber’s chat with Ben Lerner. | Literary Hub

“I’ve been publishing in ‘mainstream’ journals and my book won that [the Pulitzer] prize, so what is it that is making me invisible?” A report from PEN America’s diversity in publishing panel with Greg Pardlo. | The Guardian

Jonathan Franzen on the rise of “the New Yorker story,” known for its “carefully wrought, many-comma’d prose,” in the 1950s. | The New Yorker

“American literature has been missing Kurniawan, without even being aware, until now, of our loss.” On Eka Kurniawan’s two newly translated novels. | Bookforum

“The black face boy is why we are here. He is the cake of all our trouble!” Nikky Finney’s devastating “The Battle of and for the Black Face Boy.” | Oxford American

The disturbing and amazing Mark Z. Danielewski offers five books that are both unsettling and beautiful. | A.V. Club

On Lauren Redniss’s insightful, formally innovative look at everyone’s favorite topic of conversation – the weather. | The New York Times

The artist is (too) present: Writers are coming to engage with and embrace social media. | Full Stop

The prodigal pun returns: On the linguistics of the overused, overlooked form of wit. | JSTOR Daily

Also on Literary Hub: Corinne Manning in defense of the new censorship · A poem-a-day countdown to the Irish Arts Center Poetry Fest: day seven, Tracy K. Smith · A spooky story from Lincoln Michel’s Upright Beasts, “Colony”

[theginkgopapers]

Written by Himself

I was born in minutes in a roadside kitchen a skillet whispering my name. I was born to rainwater and lye; I was born across the river where I was borrowed with clothespins, a harrow tooth, broadsides sewn in my shoes. I returned, though it please you, through no fault of my own, pockets filled with coffee grounds and eggshells. I was born still and superstitious; I bore an unexpected burden. I gave birth, I gave blessing, I gave rise to suspicion. I was born abandoned outdoors in the heat-shaped air, air drifting like spirits and old windows. I was born a fraction and a cipher and a ledger entry; I was an index of first lines when I was born. I was born waist-deep stubborn in the water crying                              ain’t I a woman and a brother I was born to this hall of mirrors, this horror movie I was born with a prologue of references, pursued by mosquitoes and thieves, I was born passing off the problem of the twentieth century: I was born. I read minds before I could read fishes and loaves; I walked a piece of the way alone before I was born.

by Greg Pardlo (2010)