Pardlo: They whip quick as an infant's pulse and a jumper before she enters the winking nods in time as if she has a notion to share.

Waiting her chance to speak.

But she's anticipating the upbeat like a bandleader, counting off the tune they are about to swing into.

Narrator: At the age of 46, Pardlo won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, joining the ranks of Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams, Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Frost.

Now he seems to be in perpetual travel mode, giving readings anywhere from Sri Lanka to his hometown in Willingboro, New Jersey.

Pardlo: The jumper stair steps into midair as if she's jumping rope in low gravity, training for a lunar mission.

Airborne a moment long enough to fit a second thought in.

She looks caught in the mouth bones of a fish as she flutter floats into motion like a figure in a stack of time lapse photos thumbed alive.

Once inside, the bells tied to her shoestrings roused the gods who've lain in the dust since the Dutch acquired Manhattan.

[ Applause ] Going back was really wonderful, and I was so pleasantly surprised, not only at how well received I was, but how much I missed feeling at home.

I felt legitimately like I belonged.

And I'd forgotten what that felt like.

Every place in South Jersey has some resonating memory for me.

I was born still and superstitious.

I bore an unexpected burden.

I give birth, I give blessing.

I gave rise to suspicion.

I was born abandoned outdoors in the heat shaped air.

Air drifting like spirits and old windows.

I was born a fraction and a cipher and a ledger entry.

I was an index of first lines when I was born.

Narrator: These days, Pardlo lives in Brooklyn with his family.

He has two books of poetry under his belt.

The second, "Digest," was the Pulitzer Prize winner.

He is the first to admit that the prize has made it a little harder for him to stay focused.

Pardlo: There is a big lure to jump at opportunities right away.

But my sense is that they'll be there.

The world is still going to be there, and I want to do my best to follow through with everything I set out to do before the prize.

"I make a starless night on my face before he asks, 'Are you ready?'

'Yeah, dawg, I'm ready.'

'Sure' 'Sure.

Let's do this.'

His rough hand in mine inflates like a blood pressure cuff, and I squeeze back as if we are about to step together from the sill of all resentment and timeless toward the dream source of unneeded.

The two of us hurdle sharing the cosmic breast of plenitude.

When I hear the coins blink against the surface and I cough up daylight like I've just been dragged shore.

'See, now you'll never walk alone,' he jokes, and is about to hand me back to the day he found me in, like I was a rubber duck.

And he says, 'You got to let go.'

But I feel bottomless.

And I know he means well, though I don't believe.

And I feel myself shaking my head no when he means let go his hand."

[ Music plays ]