Ed Roberson is the author of ten books of poetry, including the chapbook Closer Pronunciation (Northwestern University Press, 2013) and the collection To See the Earth before the End of the World (Wesleyan University Press, 2010). An earlier collection, Atmosphere Conditions (Green Integer, 2000), was selected for the National Poetry Series and nominated for the Lenore Marshall Award from the Academy of American Poets. He is the recipient of the 2016 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation and the 2008 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.

Roberson lives in Chicago, where he has taught classes and workshops at the University of Chicago, Columbia College, and Northwestern University. He has served as an instructor at the Cave Canem Retreat for Black Writers and as the Holloway Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He is Distinguished Lecturer Emeritus at Northwestern University.