Sometimes we talk about a poet finding his or her own voice, but the voice in any given poem is often multiple. Who is speaking in the poem’s voice, and how do we know? In this master class, Ed Roberson discusses examples from his own poetry in which the text seems to be talking back or responding to the writing of other contemporary poets of his generation, such as Lyn Hejinian and Nathaniel Mackey. The class will be structured as a conversation: he invites students to bring poems of their own along with examples from other poets who influenced them.
Tuning In And Talking Back — Master Class with Ed Roberson
Ed Roberson
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.