New York, NY – Poets & Writers, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary year in 2020, announced today that Ed Roberson is the recipient of the 2020 Jackson Poetry Prize. The prize is awarded annually by Poets & Writers to an American poet of exceptional talent. Endowed by John and Susan Jackson, the prize carries a monetary award of $70,000 and aims to provide what poets need: time and encouragement to write.
Asked what winning the Jackson Prize means to him, Mr. Roberson responded with a story. “Years ago, I got very sick,” he said. “A Nigerian woman in the kitchen with other family women, said to my face, ‘You have big mind. You do great things maybe. But we love you. You need to take care of basic things too. You need to come in here and eat.’ They always made me eat. Ifeoma and her family probably saved my life. There have been others. This award is like that. It says, nice work Ed, we love you, but you need this, to take care of some basic things too.”
While earning his undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh, Roberson was a research assistant in limnology and traveled on expeditions through Canada, Alaska, the Kodiak and Afognak islands, and Bermuda. As an expedition member of the Explorers Club of Pittsburgh, he climbed mountains in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes. Roberson has worked as a diver-tankman in the Pittsburgh AquaZoo, in steel mills, and in advertising graphics. He has motorcycled across the United States and has traveled in West Africa, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
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