C. S. Giscombe

Cecil S. Giscombe was born in 1950 in Dayton, Ohio. He graduated with degrees in English from University at Albany and Cornell University. At Cornell, he edited Epoch magazine.

Giscombe’s books include Negro Mountain (University of Chicago Press, 2023); Similarly (Dalkey Archive, 2020); Border Towns (Dalkey Archive, 2016); Ohio Railroads (Omnidawn, 2014); Prairie Style (Dalkey Archive Press, 2008); Giscome Road (Dalkey Archive Press, 1998); and Here (Dalkey Archive Press, 1994). Giscombe is also the author of Into and Out of Dislocation (North Point Press, 2000), a travelogue-memoir in prose.

Giscombe’s honors and awards include the Stephen Henderson Award in Poetry, the American Book Award, and the Carl Sandburg Prize, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fund for Poetry, the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars, and the Canadian Embassy.

Giscombe has taught at Cornell University, Syracuse University, Illinois State University, the New York State Poets-in-the-Schools Program, and Penn State. He is currently the Robert Hass Chair in English at the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in Berkeley.