Major Jackson didn’t plan to become a poet. Although he wrote frequently in his book of rhymes while attending high school in North Philadelphia, he secretly dreamed of being a rapper. “I found poetry when I needed it, and from a young age I was enthralled by the mystery of existence,” he explains. “As a child I thought an answer, a meaning, was just round the corner. And poetry allowed me to participate in that making of meaning.”

Keeping his creations private, Jackson mistakenly handed his book of rhymes to a teacher who was collecting textbooks. Shocked when the teacher asked if he could read one of his poems in class, Jackson agreed and quickly became addicted to hearing his poetry recited aloud. The teacher became a “champion for me, someone whose readings and valuing of poems would partially dictate my path in life.” Yet, in spite of his passion for poetry, Jackson majored in accounting at Temple University, and afterwards worked in finance for the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia. Surrounded by creative minds, Jackson enjoyed interacting with artists who used their art for activism, and he slowly felt his ambitions change. Soon, he was back on the path to poetry with a purpose. 

“I think poets, or writers in general, are driven by their particular concerns and their experiences, but they also just very simply have a really expensive thirst for language; they desire and understand language is something that fills them and nourishes them,” says Jackson, the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University and the poetry editor of The Harvard Review. “I had the great honor of editing the Best American Poetry 2019, and it was there in which I understood the task of those who serve as literary stewards of American literature. We have a grand tradition of poetry here in America … and it’s important that we have people who understand that history and are able to interweave it with the voices of today.”

Jackson’s poetry focuses on the Black experience and, more recently, the environment; he frequently weaves together those topics. As editor of Best American Poetry 2019, Jackson discovered that he had a substantial deliverable: “I sought poems that braved human connection; poems that battle the inertia of our daily routines and fixed modes of thinking; poems that shaded in the outlines of contemporary life, and generously extended us into a profound understanding of ourselves.”
Jackson recited many of his works, including Climate, Rethinking Bitcoin, Let Me Begin Again, and Of Wolves and Imagination. As he introduced his poem Think of Me Laughing, about finding joy in spite of the deep sorrow that Black people face, Jackson said, “There is a sense that if you’re a writer of color that you have to write about certain events, and sometimes it's difficult to be told that one must write about these particular events.” 

Despite the interconnectedness of today’s world via social media, Jackson dug deep into his personal relationship with poetry and discovered that it is truly the ultimate connector. “We are – without art, poetry and literature – incapable of taking in the full width and complexity of our humanity, and are likely to overlook the miracles that are found there. Poetry brings us closer.”

Jackson visited Hotchkiss on May 9 through the Lambert Fund, established by the Lambert family in the memory of their son, Christopher ’76, who had an abiding interest in poetry. Their generosity has brought many writers and poets to campus since the Fund's establishment in 1981. Jackson is the author of five books of poetry, including The Absurd Man (2020), Roll Deep (2015), Holding Company (2010), Hoops (2006) and Leaving Saturn (2002), which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems. His edited volumes include: Best American Poetry 2019, Renga for Obama, and Library of America’s Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. A recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Major Jackson has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. Jackson lives in Nashville, TN where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review.