Major Jackson (born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an
American poet and professor at
Vanderbilt University. He is the author of five collections of poetry: The Absurd Man (
W.W. Norton, 2020), Roll Deep (
W.W. Norton, 2015), Holding Company (
W.W. Norton, 2010), Hoops (
W.W. Norton, 2006), finalist for an
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
Image Award for Outstanding Literature-Poetry, and Leaving Saturn (University of Georgia, 2002), winner of the 2000 Cave Canem Poetry Prize
[Cave Canem Poetry Prize Winners]
and finalist for a National Book Critics Award Circle.
/ref> His edited volumes include: Best American Poetry 2019, Renga for Obama, and Library of America's Countee Cullen: Collected Poems.
Life
He earned degrees from Temple University and the University of Oregon.[ Major Jackson is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. From 2002 until 2020, he taught at the University of Vermont as the Richard A. Dennis Professor of English and University Distinguished Professor. He is a former graduate faculty member of the New York University Creative Writing Program and the Bennington Writing Seminars. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The '' Harvard Review.'']
His poems and essays have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry London
''Poetry London'' is a literary periodical based in London. Published three times a year, it features poems, reviews, and other articles.
Profile
Adopting the title of an earlier bimonthly publication which ran from 1939 to 1951, ''Poetry London' ...
, Orion Magazine, The Yale Review
''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on hi ...
, among other fine publications. His poetry has received critical attention in '' The Boston Globe'', '' Christian Science Monitor'', '' The New York Times'', '' World Literature Today'', '' Philadelphia Inquirer,'' and on National Public Radio's '' All Things Considered''. His work has been included in many anthologies including ''The Best American Poetry 2004
''The Best American Poetry 2004'', a volume in '' The Best American Poetry series'', was edited by general editor David Lehman. The guest editor for the year was Lyn Hejinian.
Hejinian, a "partisan of the Language School and the New York poets", a ...
'' (Scribner, 2004), ''The Pushcart Prize XXIX: Best of the Small Presses'', (W.W. Norton & Company, 2004) ''Schwerkraft'', ''From the Fishouse'' (Persea Books, 2009), and ''The Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation'' (W.W. Norton & Company, 2010).
Honors and awards
A recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, his awards include a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Award
The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation
Mrs. (American English) or Mrs (British English; standard E ...
, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is a nonprofit grantmaking organization and knowledge-sharing hub for arts and culture in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US established in 2005. In 2008, Paula Marincola was named the first executive director. Th ...
, and a Witter Bynner Fellowship
Witter Bynner Fellowships are administered by the Library of Congress and sponsored by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, an organization that provides grant support for poetry programs through nonprofit organizations. Fellows are chosen by t ...
Witter Bynner Foundation Fellowship Recipients
in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He also served as poet-in-residence at The Frost Place, creative arts fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian a ...
Writer-in-Residence at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence at Baruch College.
Poetry collections
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References
External links
*
Profile at The Whiting Foundation
WW Norton Author Page
* Vide
Interview with Major Jackson at the NYS Writers Institute in 2008
* Interview
Major Jackson Interview on Identity Theory
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Major
American male poets
Central High School (Philadelphia) alumni
Living people
Writers from Philadelphia
Poets from Pennsylvania
Poets from Vermont
Temple University alumni
University of Oregon alumni
The New Yorker people
University of Vermont faculty
Writers from Burlington, Vermont
Pew Fellows in the Arts
1968 births