Richard Jackson

Profile

Richard Jackson is the author of 17 books of poems including The Heart as Framed: New and Select Poems as well as a book of prose poems, Dispatches (both 2022). Other books include Where the Wind Comes From (Kelsay, 2020), Broken Horizons (Press 53, 2018), Traversings with VCFA faculty Bob Vivian (Anchor and Plume, 2016), Take Five (prose poems with other poets, 2018), Retrievals (C&R Press, 2014), Out of Place (Ashland, 2010), Half Lives: Petrarchan Poems (Autumn House, 2004), Unauthorized Autobiography: New and Selected Poems (Ashland, 2003), and Heartwall (UMass, Juniper Prize 2000), as well as four chapbook adaptations from Pavese and other Italian poets and Those Shadowy Reflections: Prose Poems (Foundlings Press Chapbook).

He has translated a book of poems by Alexsander Persolja (Potvanje Sonca/Journey of the Sun) (Kulturno Drustvo Vilenica: Slovenia, 2007) and co-translated Last Voyage, a book of translations of the early-20th-century Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli (Red Hen, 2010). In addition, he has edited the Selected Poems of Iztok Osojnik, Slovene poet, and Tomaž Šalamun’s When the Shadow Breaks / Kdo vdre senca (Slovene Writers Association, 2010). His own poems have been translated into 17 languages, including Worlds Apart: Selected Poems in Slovene (Slovene Writers’ Association, 1999) and Resonica (Barcelona:Kriller 71 ediciones, 2014) in Catalan. He has edited two anthologies of Slovene poetry, Poetry Miscellany, a journal, and over 30chapbooks from European poets.

He is the author of Dismantling Time in Contemporary American Poetry (Agee Prize), and Acts of Mind: Interviews with Contemporary American Poets (Choice Award). He was awarded the Order of Freedom Medal for literary and humanitarian work in the Balkans by the President of Slovenia for his work with the Slovene-based Peace and Sarajevo Committees of PEN International, and his editing of the journal mala revija as well as his Slovene Poetry Chapbook series. He has received Guggenheim, NEA, NEH, and two Witter-Bynner fellowships, a Prairie Schooner Reader’s Choice Award, and the Crazyhorse prize, and he is the winner of five Pushcart Prizes and has appeared in Best American Poems ’97, as well as many other anthologies.

Recently he edited The Heart’s Many Doors featuring 41 American poets responding to Slovene artist Metka Krašovec’s sketches based on Emily Dickinson lines (Wings Press, 2017). He is currently co-editing an anthology of Slovene poetry and interviews, A Bridge of Voices.

Originator of VCFA’s Slovenia Program, he was a Fulbright Exchange poet to former Yugoslavia and returns to Europe each year with various groups of students. He has been teaching at the River Pretty Writers’ Conference, The Prague Summer Workshops, and regularly at UT-Chattanooga (since 1976) where he directs the Meacham Writers’ Conference. He has taught at VCFA since 1987. He has won teaching awards at UT-Chattanooga where over 20 of his former undergrads have gone on to publish over 50 books, and at VCFA. In 2009 he won the AWP George Garret Award for teaching, writing, and arts promotion, and in 2019 the Barnett Prize for Distinguished Author.