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Major Jackson
Major Jackson
Born	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Poet
Education	Temple University; University of Oregon
Genre	Poetry
Literary movement	Dark Room Collective
Website
	majorjackson.com

Major Jackson (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American poet and professor at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of six collections of poetry: Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems 2002-2022 (W.W. Norton, 2023), 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 Image Award for Outstanding Literature-Poetry, and Leaving Saturn (University of Georgia, 2002), winner of the 2000 Cave Canem Poetry Prize^[1] and finalist for a National Book Critics Award Circle.^[2] His edited volumes include: Best American Poetry 2019, Renga for Obama, and Library of America's Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. His prose is published in A Beat Beyond: Selected Prose of Major Jackson (University of Michigan, 2022). He is host of the podcast The Slowdown.

Life

Major Jackson was born on September 9, 1968, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is the son of Levorn Gregory Spann and Gloria Ann Matthews.^[3] Jackson attended a studious Catholic primary school and later attended Central High School.^[4] He earned degrees from Temple University and the University of Oregon.^[1] Jackson married Didi Jackson in May 2013.^[3] 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.^[5]^[6]^[7] He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review.^[2]

His poems and essays have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry London, Orion Magazine, and The Yale Review, 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.^[8]^[9] His work has been included in many anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2004 (Scribner, 2004), The Pushcart Prize XXIX: Best of the Small Presses, (W.W. Norton & Company, 2004) Schwerkraft,^[10] From the Fishouse (Persea Books, 2009),^[11]^[12] and The Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation (W.W. Norton & Company, 2010).^[13] Major Jackson also became the host of The Slowdown, a podcast that selects a poem and reflects on it in a five to ten minute episode.^[14]

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,^[15] a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and a Witter Bynner Fellowship^[16] 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 Writer-in-Residence at the University of Massachusetts Lowell,^[2] and Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence at Baruch College.

Inspiration and effects

In an interview, Jackson expressed an interest in "the ethical obligation we have to the communities we claim," one of the many themes in his "Urban Renewal" series.^[4] While at Temple University, Jackson formed a relationship with Sonia Sanchez, his first creative-writing professor, who he claims is "responsible for his embrace of poetry".^[4] Other important role models include Garrett Hongo, Derek Walcott, Afaa Michael Weaver, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, Philip Levine and C. K. Williams.^[17]

He was a member of the Dark Room Collective.

In many of Jackson's works, he incorporates a theme of praise, as he believes that this praise "affected him most deeply in the works of the earlier generation of African America poets".^[4] Jackson went to Kenya with the mission of extending the literary conversation between Kenya and the United States by working with local writers.

Poetry collections

Razzle Dazzle: New and Selected Poems 2002-2022. W W Norton & Co Inc. 2023. ISBN 978-1-324-06490-9.
The Absurd Man: Poems. W W Norton & Co Inc. 2020. ISBN 978-1-324-00455-4.
Roll Deep: Poems. W W Norton & Co Inc. 2015. ISBN 978-0-393-24689-6.
Holding Company: Poems. W W Norton & Co Inc. 2010. ISBN 978-0-393-07080-4.
Hoops: Poems. W W Norton & Co Inc. 2006. ISBN 978-0-393-33037-3.
Leaving Saturn: poems. University of Georgia Press. 2002. ISBN 978-0-8203-2342-8.

Prose collections

A Beat Beyond: Selected Prose of Major Jackson, ed. Amor Kohli. University of Michigan Press. 2022. ISBN 978-0-472-03906-7.

References

^ ^a ^b Cave Canem Poetry Prize Winners Archived 2012-01-12 at the Wayback Machine
^ ^a ^b ^c Author's Website. Major Jackson Biography
^ ^a ^b "Major Jackson." Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, Gale, 2007. Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1000171612/CA?u=clic_stthomas&sid=bookmark-CA&xid=aa72d47e. Accessed 6 Oct. 2023.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Pardlo, Gregory (2013). "About Major Jackson: A Profile by Gregory Pardlo". Ploughshares. 39 (1): 187–139. doi:10.1353/plo.2013.0005. ISSN 2162-0903.
^ "Major Jackson". Blueflowerarts.com. 2006-04-17. Retrieved 2010-10-09.
^ "Boston Review — Major Jackson: Myth". Bostonreview.net. Archived from the original on 2010-11-02. Retrieved 2010-10-09.
^ "major jackson | identity theory interview". Identitytheory.com. 2009-09-17. Retrieved 2010-10-09.
^ Poets & Writers Directory Listing > Major Jackson
^ Blue Flower Arts > "Major Jackson Biography"
^ Ron Winkler. "Ron Winkler: SCHWERKRAFT". Ronwinkler.de. Retrieved 2010-10-09.
^ Camille T. Dungy; Matt O'Donnell; Jeffrey Thomson, eds. (2009). From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great. Persea Books. ISBN 978-0-89255-348-8.
^ From the Fishouse Major Jackson Bio Archived 2008-10-11 at the Wayback Machine
^ Greg Delanty, Michael Matto, ed. (2010). The Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation. W. W. Norton & Company Limited. ISBN 978-0-393-07901-2.
^ Mallory, Julia. "Major Jackson of The Slowdown." Poets & Writers Magazine, vol. 51, no. 3, May–June 2023, p. 21. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A745994629/GLS?u=clic_stthomas&sid=bookmark-GLS&xid=589bdf20. Accessed 8 Oct. 2023.
^ "Major Jackson".
^ Witter Bynner Foundation Fellowship Recipients Archived 2007-06-28 at the Wayback Machine
^ Gannon, Mary. "Exalted utterance: moving into new poetic territory, Major Jackson, in his third collection, Holding Company, corrals the ecstatic in a ten-line form." Poets & Writers Magazine, vol. 38, no. 5, Sept.-Oct. 2010, pp. 62+. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A236567664/GLS?u=clic_stthomas&sid=bookmark-GLS&xid=96b1e9be. Accessed 8 Oct. 2023.