Gregory Pardlo and Subverting Expectations

As a writer, there are few things that make me feel grateful to be alive the way poetry does. This past Thursday, the Cornell Department of English hosted author Gregory Pardlo as the first guest in the Fall 2018 Barbara & David Zalaznick Reading Series. Pardlo’s collection, Digest, was the recipient of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. In 2007, his first book of poetry, Totem, won the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize. This past April, he published Air Traffic: A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood, which was named one of “17 Refreshing Books to Read This Summer” by the New York Times.