Rigoberto González

Profile

Rigoberto González is the author of five volumes of poetry: The Book of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2019); Unpeopled Eden (2013), winner of a Lambda Literary Award and the 2014 Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; Black Blossoms (2011); Other Fugitives and Other Strangers (2006); and So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks (1999), a National Poetry Series selection. He has also written two bilingual children’s books, a novel, a collection of short stories and Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006), which received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. He is the editor of Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing (University of Arizona Press, 2010).

His honors include the PEN/Voelcker Award in Poetry in 2019, the Poetry Center Book Award, the Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America, a University and College Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle, as well as fellowships from the NEA and from the Guggenheim, United States Artists, and Lannan foundations. A contributing editor for Poets & Writers magazine, González serves on the executive board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle.

He is distinguished professor of English and director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University–Newark. The son of migrant farm workers, González traveled between the United States and Mexico for much of his childhood and now lives in New York City.