Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gregory Pardlo will read from his work while at Rensselaer on April 12 during the annual McKinney Writing Contest awards ceremony. The program will be held in the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies Howard P. Isermann Auditorium, beginning at 8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
The annual contest and ceremony is co-sponsored by the Rensselaer Department of Communication and Media and the New York State Writers Institute. The contest honors student work in several categories: fiction/drama, poetry, essay, and electronic media. First, second, and third prizes are awarded to outstanding submissions in both graduate and undergraduate divisions. In addition to presenting these awards, Pardlo will read from his work and respond to questions from the audience.
The McKinney Writing Contest was established in 1941 by Samuel McKinney, who graduated from Rensselaer in 1884, in memory of his wife, Mary Earl McKinney. The contest is designed to encourage communication skills among Rensselaer students and promote the liberal arts.
“The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences is proud to keep alive the tradition of the McKinney Writing Contest at Rensselaer. Both the contest and the reading by Gregory Pardlo are valuable ways for the Rensselaer community to celebrate literature,” said Mary Simoni, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “The Department of Communication and Media at Rensselaer is an internationally recognized center for interdisciplinary education and research. Programs like this create opportunities for us to understand the traditional and emerging technologies from various perspectives, while also celebrating our students’ efforts to use words and images to communicate powerful stories, messages, or experiences that they are willing to share with the campus community.”
The McKinney Writing Contest was established in 1941 by Samuel McKinney, who graduated from Rensselaer in 1884, in memory of his wife, Mary Earl McKinney. The contest is designed to encourage communication skills among Rensselaer students and promote the liberal arts.
In addition to the McKinney Fund, the contest receives support from the Rensselaer Vollmer Fries Lecture Fund; School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; Rensselaer Union; Friends of the Folsom Library; Department of Communication and Media; the New York State Writers Institute; and the literary organization Poets & Writers.
Pardlo’s appearance is sponsored in part by the Vollmer Fries Lecture Series, which was established by Vollmer Fries, who graduated from Rensselaer in 1924 with a degree in electrical engineering. Fries led several manufacturing companies and served his country during World War II, serving as deputy chief of the War Production Board. In 1950, Fries became a member of the Rensselaer Board of Trustees.
Pardlo’s collection Digest (Four Way Books) won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His other honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His first collection, Totem, was selected by Brenda Hillman for the APR/Honickman Prize in 2007. He is also the author of Air Traffic, a memoir in essays forthcoming from Knopf.
“For more than 76 years, the McKinney Competition has celebrated excellent writing in generations of Rensselaer undergraduate and graduate students,” said Miles Kimball, professor and head of the Department of Communication and Media. “The annual competition creates an opportunity for students from all disciplines to learn how to change the world with powerful words and images.”