A dad's lessons on masculinity and race

In 1981 President Ronald Reagan fired 13,000 striking air traffic controllers. It was a major defeat for organized labor and changed the lives of many of the people who were fired. Gregory Pardlo’s father never recovered. He went from job to job, lost the family’s savings, and became a drug addict. Pardlo, a Pulitzer prize winning poet, has written a new memoir, which is about more than his dad losing his job. It’s about race, manhood and what it means to succeed in modern America.

Poet Gregory Pardlo.

Pardlo's father.

Images courtesy of Pardlo