PUTNEY — Next Stage Arts, 15 Kimball Hill, presents esteemed poets Major Jackson and Didi Jackson as part of its ongoing literary series, Next Stage Speaks, on Friday, May 28, at 7 p.m.
Major Jackson is the author of four collections of poetry: Roll Deep (W.W. Norton, 2015); Holding Company (W.W. Norton, 2010) and Hoops (W.W. Norton, 2006), both finalists for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature-Poetry; and Leaving Saturn (University of Georgia Press, 2002), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and finalist for a National Book Critics Award Circle, according to a news release.
He is a professor of English at the University of Vermont and a faculty member of the Bennington College Writing Seminars. He serves as the Poetry Editor of the Harvard Review.
Didi Jackson's poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Green Mountains Review, The Common, and Water-Stone Review among other publications. Her manuscript, Almost Animal, (now Killing Jar) was a finalist for the Alice James Book Award, the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize by Persea Books, and Autumn House Press. It was a semi-finalist for the Crab Orchard Open Book Prize, the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, and the University of Wisconsin Press Brittingham and Felix Pollack Prizes.
Her chapbook, Slag and Fortune, was published by Floating Wolf Quarterly in 2013. Currently, she teaches Poetry and the Visual Arts, 20th century Poetry of War and Witness, and Creative Writing at the University of Vermont.
Next Stage Speaks is hosted by Vermont Poet Laureate, and Westminster West resident, Chard DeNiord. There is a suggested donation at the door of $10. For more information, contact Next Stage at [email protected] or call 802-387-0102.