Poetry. African American Studies. Ed Roberson's eighth full-length book of poetry, THE NEW WING OF THE LABYRINTH, is a taut, intricately interwoven series of poems that present an unsentimental yet harrowing encounter with the finality of life: "where do we go / but to die into immunity in this life / the thousand deaths that evolve us." As Michael Palmer has written, "Ed Roberson offers us, up front, the nerve-edge of poetic speech, sequences of the unanticipated, as poetry of real significance is meant to do."

Author City: CHICAGO, IL USA

Ed Roberson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1939. He is author of several books of poetry, most recently THE NEW WING OF THE LABYRINTH (Singing Horse Press, 2009) and CITY ECLOGUE, (Atelos, 2006). His collection Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In was a winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize; his book Atmosphere Condition was a winner of the National Poetry Series and was nominated for the Academy of American Poets' Lenore Marshall Award. He is a recipient of the Lila Wallace Writers' Award and the Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Award.