Ed Roberson (A&S ’70) Wins Prestigious Poetry Prize

University of Pittsburgh alumnus Ed Roberson (A&S ’70) received the 2020 Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers.

The award, which comes with a prize of $70,000, annually recognizes an American poet of “exceptional talent” and aims to provide them with “time and encouragement to write.”

Roberson, a 1970 graduate of the Department of Chemistry in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, has written ten books of poetry. According to a press release, Roberson was a research assistant in limnology while earning his undergraduate degree at Pitt and traveled on expeditions through Canada, Alaska, the Kodiak and Afognak Islands and Bermuda. He is also the recipient of other prestigious poetry awards including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award and the African American Literature and Culture Association’s Stephen Henderson Critics Award.

His upcoming collection, “Asked What Has Changed,” will be published in 2021.