Photo © Anne Mandelbaum

Lloyd Schwartz

Lloyd Schwartz was born on November 29, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1962 and earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1976.

Schwartz's most recent book of poetry is Cairo Traffic (University of Chicago Press, 2000), which was preceded by Goodnight, Gracie (1992) and These People (1981). He is also the co-editor of a volume of Elizabeth Bishop's collected works for the Library of America.

About his work, the poet Richard Howard has said: "The poet has extended his reach as well as his grasp, and we are the richer for it, through no less ravaged: these people (and these poems) are devastated by life, of which they offer us, unnervingly, the flagrant shards."

His poems, articles, and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and The Best American Poetry. In 1994, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

Schwartz has taught at Boston State College, Queens College, and Harvard University, and is currently Frederick S. Troy Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. He is also the Classical Music Editor of The Boston Phoenix and a regular commentator on NPR's Fresh Air.