Robert Polito is a poet, essayist, editor, and biographer. His most recent books are the poetry collection Hollywood & God and Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber. Hollywood & God was chosen by Barnes and Noble as one of the top five poetry books of 2010. Polito received a National Book Critics Circle Award for Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson. He is also the author of the poetry collection Doubles, as well as A Reader’s Guide to James Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover, and a study of Byron's poetry. His poems and reviews, criticism, and essays on literature, film, and popular music have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including The New Yorker, Artforum, Harpers, The Believer, Bookforum, The Poetry Foundation website, Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, and Best American Film Writing. The founding director of the Graduate Writing Program and the Riggio Honors Program: Writing & Democracy at the New School, he served as President of the Poetry Foundation in Chicago (2013-2015), before returning to New York and the New School. He is working on a new collection of poems, as well as on a pair of nonfiction books -- on noir; and Bob Dylan. For some seven years Polito judged the annual Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, selecting for publication books by Eula Biss, Leslie Jamison, and Ander Monson, among others.