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what's new
August 2008
Literary Journals:
Recent poems appear A
Public Space and Memorious.
Harvard Review: Harvard
Review #34 hit the newsstands this summer. Check out
new poems by David Huddle and Garrett Hongo. Becky Thompson does a
mean riff on the dictionary poem. Patricia Giragosian writes “To
a Presidential Candidate.” Kathryn Maris proclaims “Why
She Will Take Your Man.” Also, young poets Megan Alpert and
Matt Hart make their first appearances in the Harvard Review.
Books: 2008 Summer
Reading: James Agee & Walker Evans’s Let Us Now Praise
Famous Men, Mary Jo Bang’s Elegy, John Cheever’s
The Stories of John Cheevers.
Good Buys:
Poets
in the Parks. Audio CD of The Academy of American
Poets' outdoor reading series, Poets in the Parks. Includes poems by:
Mark Bibbins, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Tina Chang, Peter Covino,
Timothy Donnelly, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Cathy Park Hong, Major
Jackson, Ada Limón, Cate Marvin, Geoffrey G. O'Brien, Eugene
Ostashevsky, Ravi Shankar, and Rachel Zucker.
Anthology: After
Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events
from Sante Lucia Books.
February 2008
RADIO INTERVIEW & READING: Boston University's WBUR - World of Ideas
Poets and Politics
The show features excerpts of a poetry reading and discussion with
Polish poet and translator Tomasz Rozycki and poet Major Jackson,
Associate Professor of English at the University of Vermont, and a
faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars. The event was
presented by the Institute for Human Sciences at Boston University in
cooperation with the literary journal Agni. Rozycki and Jackson were
introduced by Irena Grudzinska-Gross, the Institute for Human Sciences
Executive Director. Listen to this show:
http://www.buworldofideas.org/shows/2007/10/20071007.asp
January 2008
TV APPEARANCE: Watch a reading and discussion with novelist and host Kim McLarin on Basic Black (WGBH-Boston).
Basic Black
A Conversation and Poetry with Major Jackson
Poet Major Jackson reads from his latest collection, Hoops, which explores the grace and vibrancy of African American urban communities. Jackson's first collection, Leaving Saturn (2002), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Jackson's poems have also appeared in the New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and Boulevard. In conversation with host Kim McLarin, Major Jackson discusses his literary influences and the importance of art as a political message.
ALLAN ROHAN CRITE (1910?2007): Mr. Rohan Crite died September 6, 2007. Here is a comprehensive summary of his life and work as published in the National Catholic Reporter. http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007d/121407/12140
June 2007
CONGRATULATIONS: Much love and congratulations to my dear friend Natasha Trethewey on winning the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her exceptional new collection Native Guard.
READINGS: Check out the Calendar; New readings and workshops have been scheduled for 2008, including Palm Beach Poetry Festival, City College�s 36th Annual Poetry Festival, and University of Alabama.
BOOKS: 2007 Summer Poetry Reading: Jillian Weise�s The Amputee's Guide to Sex,, Tony Hoagland's Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft, Eliza Griswold’s Wideawake Field: Poems, and Paige Ackerson-Kiely's In No One’s Land.
February 2007
RADIO INTERVIEW: Open Source with Christopher Lydon
www.radioopensource.org/major-jackson-where-hes-from/
RECOGNITION: I am happy to announce that Hoops has been selected as a finalist for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work - Poetry.
The other nominees include:
- Celebrations: Rituals of Peace & Prayer — Maya Angelou (Random House)
- Jazz — Walter Dean Myers (Holiday House)
- We Speak Your Names — Pearl Cleage (Random House)
- Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets & Emcees — DuEwa Frazier, editor (Lit
Noire)
To learn more, visit: www.naacpimageawards.net/imageawards38.html.
HISTORY IN THE MAKING: Harvard University has its first female president, Radcliffe Dean and supremo scholar/thinker/friend of poets, humanists, and scientists alike, Drew Gilpin Faust.
BOOKS : Stellar Places by Jeffrey Renard Allen, Chinese Apples by W.S. Di Piero, Labors Lost Left Unfinished by Ed Pavlic, For the Confederate Dead by Kevin Young, Conversion by Remica Bingham, and Civilization by Elizabeth Arnold.
JOURNALS: I'm reading David Byrne's Journal, Jake Adam York's Jacob's Ladder, as well as Mat Johnson's Niggerati. Needless to say, as always, Jilly's Poetry Hut.
November 2006
ABOUT ALLAN ROHAN CRITE (1910–): The cover of Hoops features School’s Out (1936) by Allan Rohan Crite, an important American painter. The book jacket only mentions the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which owns Rohan Crite�s painting which was created during his year of employment with the Works Progress Administration.
From Smithsonian Website:
Brought up in Boston, Crite received his art training al the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Harvard University Extension School in 1968. He worked for most of his life as an illustrator in the Planning Department of the Boston Naval Shipyards, retiring in 1976, but continued to paint at the same time. His work has been widely exhibited and well received in Boston, where a square is named after him. Crite’s early paintings depict the daily life of Boston’s African-American community, a community that was to be transformed in the following decade by urban renewal and housing projects. According to the artist, he sought to show viewers the "real Negro" as opposed to the "Harlem" or "jazz Negro," that was created by white people.
In his later paintings, magic-realist visions in which a black Virgin and Child ride on public transportation or float above the city streets, Crite used a bright palette rather than the more somber tones of his "neighborhood paintings." Compared with these earlier paintings, the religious works offer a message of hope and deliverance. During the 1950s Crite lectured on liturgical art and wrote and illustrated books with theological themes telling "the story of man through the black figure.
Read more about Mr. Crite in Harvard's Alumni Bulletin.
BLOG: I kept a daily journal at the Poetryfoundation.org during the week of November 13th through November 17th. Check it out here: Major Jackson's Blah blah blah.
READINGS: Check out the Calendar; I've a few more readings for 2007; such a literary occasion might happen near you. More importantly, I extend serious gratitude to everyone who showed up to hear my work or who enrolled in a workshop in 2006.
REVIEWS: Reviews of Hoops have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Harvard Review, and Southern Review. I'm working to obtain permission to reprint them here. Stay tuned.
BOOKS: Some books new to my nightstand include: Strong Is Your Hold by Galway Kinnell, Mosquito by Alex Lemon, Splay Anthem by Nathaniel Mackey, Recyclopedia by Harryette Mullen, a half-red sea by Evie Shockley, The Man with My Face by Jennifer Tseng, and From the Book of Giants by Joshua Weiner.
April 2006
I have been appointed a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and will work on a new collection of poetry during the 2006-2007 academic year.
Check out these new books; they are really good: Dark Wild Realm by Michael Collier; Femme du Monde by Patricia Spears Jones; Blue Peninsula by Madge McKeithen; Abide With Me by Elizabeth Strout; Perennial Fall by Maggie Dietz; and Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics by John Gennari.
Jazz-Lit.com will perform in its third straight year in the 2006 Burlington Jazz Festival at the Firehouse Gallery in Burlington on June 11th. Check out Alexander Toth (trumpet), Alexander Stewart (tenor sax), Geoff Kim (guitar), John Gennari (vocals/percussion), and Major Jackson (vocals) in BrushStrokes: a multidisciplinary arts performance featuring local artists.
Congratulations to Jill McDonough and Michael McGriff on becoming 2006 Stegner Fellows.
March 2006
Congratulations to more of the family with new books on the shelves: Kwame Dawes (Wisteria); Terrance Hayes (Wind in a Box); and Natasha Trethewey (Native Guard). Also, Cave Canem, Inc. celebrates 10 years of visionary work with Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade. Poet Ursula Rucker releases a new recording of poetry, Ma’at Mama.
The last section of the verse poem Letter to Brooks is published in the print and online March issue of Poetry, my first appearance.
January 2006
I have joined the faculty of the Bennington Writers Seminar. I begin teaching in the low-residency program in June, 2006.
Congratulations to some dear friends who have recently published books: Jake Adam York (Murder Ballads: Poems); Ada Limon (Lucky Wreck); Tyehimba Jess (leadbelly); David Rivard (Sugartown); and Gail Mazur (Zeppo's First Wife: New and Selected Poems).
November 2005
Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century edited By Michael Dumanis and Cate Marvin will be available at the beginning of the year.
October 2005
Check out (actually, buy it) Furious Flower II: The Black Poetic Tradition or the feature at the very hip Poetry Cafe on RainTiger's website.
Also, I will judge this year's Rita Dove Poetry Award from Salem College. Send in submissions but read the guidelines.
September 2005
In the Spring, 2006, I will teach as the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at University of Massachusetts-Lowell.
May 2005
Check out new poems in the following literary journals: LIT, Third Coast, Triquarterly and online at From the Fishouse: an audio archive of emerging poets.
October 2004
Isn't It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger American Poets (Verse Press: 2004) edited by Brett Fletcher Lauer & Aimee Kelley is now available at a fine bookstore near you. The anthology comes complete with an Audio CD of Love Songs.
September 2004
"Urban Renewal: XVI", originally published in the 2003 Issue of Provincetown Arts, and subsequently on Poetry Daily, has received a Pushcart Prize and will be included in the 29th edition of one of the country's most prestigious literary anthologies. The poem was also selected for inclusion and currently appears in Best American Poetry 2004 edited by poet Lyn Hejinian and series editor David Lehman.
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