Bernardo Wade

Biography

Born & raised in New Orleans, Bernardo Wade tries at poems, catches elbows on the court, wanders around the Bay—occasionally on Stanford’s campus as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. Previously the Editor of Indiana Review, he now serves as Assistant Editor and Poetry Editor for Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. & though he’s published in a bunch of literary journals no one in his family has ever heard of, they remain proud of him, especially when they are featured in the poems.

His first full-length poetry collection, A Love Tap, was recently published from Lookout Books of UNC-Wilmington. He's infatuated with Ed Roberson’s question, “Can you O.D. on life?”

Awarded the 2021 Puerto del Sol Poetry Prize, the 2023 Third Coast Poetry Prize, & the Academy of American Poets’ Vera Strube Poetry Prize, he has words in The Nation, The Sewanee Review, Crazyhorse, Black Warrior Review, Guernica, Cincinnati Review, Southern Review, Ecotone, & elsewhere.