Angela Jackson to Serve as 50th Illinois Poet Laureate

Angela Jackson to Serve as 50th Illinois Poet Laureate

Chicago, Illinois:  – November 25, 2020, First Lady of Illinois, Mrs. MK Pritzker, announced the selection of Ms. Angela Jacksonon as the next Poet Laureate for the State of Illinois. Jackson is the 50th Illinoisan to hold the title of, an honorary position selected by a committee of experts and subsequently appointed by the Governor of Illinois J. B. Pritzker.

Jackson is an accomplished and award-winning poet, novelist, and playwright, who has published three chapbooks and four volumes of poetry. As Illinois’ next poet laureate, Ms. Angela Jackson will work to promote poetry at the state and national level. She will join only four other esteemed poets who have previously held this coveted title. The first Illinois Poet Laureate, Howard B. Austin, was named in 1936. The three other poets who have held the title are Carl Sandburg (1962-67), Gwendolyn Brooks (1968-2000), and Kevin Stein (2003-2017). In June, Governor J. B. Pritzker posthumously named John Prine an honorary Poet Laureate.

“Illinois has a proud history of poets who have given us reason for hope in dark times, offered poignant insight into our own humanity and delivered profound social critiques, and as I considered the nominees to be our next Poet Laureate, all of these qualities were important in making the final choice,” said First Lady MK Pritzker, Honorary Chair and Final Judge of the 2020 Illinois Poet Laureate Search Committee. “Members of the committee nominated astounding talents from our state, and I am grateful for their work for Society. After spending countless hours reviewing all the nominees’ works for Society, I am confident that Ms. Angela Jackson will continue to be a bright shining light of wisdom, inspiration and connection as she promotes the power of poetry in our Society.

Ms. Angela Jackson has received the Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America, a Pushcart Prize, the Illinois Center for the Book Heritage Award, the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Fuller Award, and the Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent from Chicago State University. In additional to her poetry, Ms. Angela Jackson’s novels and plays have also been widely recognized and she has received two American Book Awards.

Ms. Angela Jackson’s published poetic works include: The Greenville Club, 1977 (chapbook); Solo in the Boxcar Third Floor E, 1985; The Man with the White Liver, 1987; Dark Legs and Silk Kisses: The Beatitudes of the Spinners, 1993; and All These Roads Be Luminous: Poems New and Selected, 1997, which was nominated for the National Book Award. Her plays include Witness!, 1970; Shango Diaspora: An African American Myth of Womanhood and Love, 1980; and When the Wind Blows, 1984 (better known as the eta production entitled, Comfort Stew). Jackson is working on Treemont Stone, a novel; Lightfoot: The Crystal Stair, a play; her memoir, Apprenticeship in the House of Cowrie Shells; and more poems.

Jackson lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.