Balbo, Ned 1959- (Ned Clark Balbo)

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Balbo, Ned 1959- (Ned Clark Balbo)

PERSONAL:

Born November 19, 1959, in Mineola, NY; son of Donald R. (an automotive business owner) and Elaine D. (a homemaker) Osterloh; adopted son of Carmine J. (a plumber) and Elizabeth M. (a homemaker) Balbo; married Caroline Payson, May 16, 1998 (divorced, 2004); married Jane Satterfield (a poet and writer), August 19, 2006; children: Catherine Witzel (stepdaughter). Ethnicity: "(Birth) German/Polish; (adoptive) Italian/Polish." Education: Vassar College, A.B. (with honors), 1981; Johns Hopkins University, M.A., 1986; University of Iowa, M.F.A., 1989. Politics: Democrat. Religion: "Raised Roman Catholic." Hobbies and other interests: Popular culture, music (guitarist, pianist, former songwriter, avid listener).

ADDRESSES:

Home—Baltimore, MD. Office—Department of Writing, Loyola College in Maryland, 4501 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21210. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Dundalk Community College, Dundalk, MD, adjunct instructor at writing center, 1986-87; Towson University, Towson, MD, adjunct instructor in composition, 1987; Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, IA, adjunct instructor in composition, 1989-90; Loyola College in Maryland, Baltimore, adjunct instructor, 1990-99, adjunct assistant professor, 2000-06, adjunct associate professor of writing, 2006—. Center for Talented Youth, Baltimore, writing and poetry instructor, summers, 1987-92, academic dean, summers, 1993-97; Goucher College, adjunct instructor, 1990-92; presenter of workshops, seminars, and summer programs at other institutions, including New School for Social Research and University of Iowa; judge of writing competitions; gives readings from his works, including media presentations.

MEMBER:

Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, Italian-American Writers Association, Association for the Study of Adoption, Identity, and Kinship.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Academy of American Poets Prize, 1979; Beatrice Daw Brown Poetry Prize, 1981; scholar, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 1985; poetry grants, Maryland Arts Council, 1992, 2005; Virginia Prize, 1996, for the poem "Message in a Bottle"; Lyric prize, 1996, for the poem "View of a Gardener's Daughter"; Towson University Prize for Literature, 1998, for Galileo's Banquet; poetry fellow, West Chester University Poetry Conference, 1999, 2001-02, 2004-07; poetry fellow, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, 2001, 2002; Walter E. Dakin fellow in poetry, Sewanee Writers' Conference, University of the South, 2002; John Guyon Literary Nonfiction Prize, Crab Orchard Review, 2002, for the essay "Walt Whitman's Finches: Of Discretion and Disclosure in Autobiography and Adoption"; Robert Frost Foundation Poetry Award, 2003, for "Aristaeus Forgiven"; Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize and gold medal in poetry, Book of the Year Awards, ForeWord, both 2005, for Lives of the Sleepers.

WRITINGS:

Galileo's Banquet (poetry), Washington Writers' Publishing House (Washington, DC), 1998.

Lives of the Sleepers (poetry), University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 2005.

Work represented in anthologies, including Weavings 2000: The Maryland Millennial Anthology, edited by Michael S. Glaser, Maryland Commission for Celebration, 2000; September 11, Maryland Voices: Reaction, Reflection, Resilience, Baltimore Writers' Alliance/9/11 Project, 2002; Air Fare: Stories, Poems, and Essays on Flight, edited by Nickole Brown and Judith Taylor, Sarabande Books, 2004; Our Roots Are Deep with Passion: Creative Nonfiction Collects New Essays byItalian-American Writers, edited by Lee Gutkind and Joanna Clapps Herman, Other Press, 2006; and Líneas conectadas: nueva poesía de Estados Unidos/ Connecting Lines: New Poetry from the United States, edited by April Lindner, Sarabande Books, 2006. Contributor of poetry, essays, articles, translations, and reviews to periodicals, including Antioch Review, Parabola, Verse, Creative Nonfiction, Formalist, Italian Americana, River Styx, Yankee, Carolina Quarterly, and American Poetry Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ned Balbo told CA: "In an essay, ‘Walt Whitman's Finches: Of Discretion and Disclosure in Autobiography and Adoption,’ I mention that writers who are adopted find that their impulse to disclose must struggle against a tradition that urges silence.

"Adoptions in my generation sought to ‘naturalize’ the arrangement—that is, create the pretense that adoptees were born into a family, an approach that reinforced existing taboos. Adoptees were discouraged from asking about their origins or kept ignorant of their status despite unavoidable clues; adoptive parents suffered the guilt inseparable from secrecy, becoming complicit in a profound, far-reaching denial of the truth. Any secret that requires a conspiracy of silence only becomes more burdensome the longer that we carry it. The urge to break the silence—to speak out openly and seek answers—becomes, finally, irresistible over time.

"My work as a poet and essayist reflects this ongoing tension, this need to ask forbidden questions. In Galileo's Banquet and more recent work, I've sought to enter other viewpoints—literary figures, characters from popular culture, various members of my adoptive and birth families—and, in doing so, discover alternate ways of looking at the world. I often write in traditional forms and admire the masters—Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill, or Richard Wilbur—but I also publish free verse influenced by the Language Poets and New York School. In the latter group, autobiography and narrative recede, and a more playful collage of voices and styles takes over.

"Despite the influence of adoption on my poetry and prose, I don't always refer to it directly, the better to broaden my subject matter and range of expression. Lives of the Sleepers, my second collection, explores the heights and depths of eros through literature (Dante, Petrarch, Lewis Carroll), myth (Orpheus and Eurydice), film (Hitchcock's Vertigo, the 1950s horror flick House of Wax), and the Roman Catholic keepsakes and sacred objects of my upbringing (prayer cards, scapulars, books of saints' lives).

"I admire many writers, but the poets, including my wife, Jane Satterfield, are resources to whom I return again and again. Last, as a guitarist and writer whose work often touches on music, I'm not ashamed to admit the influence of talented lyricists."