Gander, Forrest

Forrest Gander is an American poet, translator, essayist, and novelist. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, including the 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner Be With; Redstart: An Ecological Poetics and Science & Steepleflower. His other books include As a Friend: A Novel; and The Trace. As a translator, he has edited several anthologies of poetry from Spain, Mexico, and Latin America, and distinct volumes by Mexican poets and Then Come Back: the Lost Neruda Poems. His critical essays have appeared in The Nation, Boston Review, and The New York Times Book Review. In Twice Alive (New Directions), his newest collection of poems, Gander reflects on the demands of our historical moment and the intimacies that bind us to others and the world. Throughout, he addresses personal and ecological trauma – several poems focus on the devastation wrought by wildfires in California, where he lives – but his tone is overwhelmingly celebratory. Commenting on the book, NPR noted that in “Gander’s follow up to his extraordinary book of loss and lamentation, Be With … this poet of metaphysical abstraction, Eros, and intimate observation … of the natural world finds fresh metaphors for the sudden and uneasy onset of new love.”