Major Jackson to Read his Poetry for Katonah Poetry Series


‘Roll Deep’ with Major Jackson and the Katonah Poetry Series on April 7

On Sunday, April 7, the Katonah Poetry Series (KPS) welcomes Major Jackson, author of four acclaimed poetry collections. In his fourth collection of poetry, Roll Deep (W.W. Norton, 2015), Major Jackson rolls deep through his poetic vision, bringing a jazz and hip hop vibe to his own personal odyssey. Who peoples the posse that has Jackson’s back? The musical artists that inform his beat, the diverse canon of influential poets before him or his ancestors? According to the New York Times, “…no matter how far the speaker journeys — for success, for beauty, for his art, for his woman — he carries home in his blood.”

Jackson has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. His debut collection Leaving Saturn (2002) won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of 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. He has published poems and essays in American Poetry Review, Callaloo, The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Tin House, and included in multiple volumes of Best American Poetry. Major Jackson is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold University Distinguished Professor at UVM and serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review.

“With a modern yet lyric sensibility, the poems in Roll Deep are a testament both to memory and renewal; the human ability to persevere.” The Rumpus

“What “Roll Deep” reminds us of, from its first poem to its last, is that the danger facing the black boy does not disappear when he becomes a black man. The black body is never safe, even when it journeys far from home. The way it survives and thrives is to move, and when moving to be sure it ‘rolls deep.’” —The New York Times

Event Location and Ticket Information

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Katonah Village Library
26 Bedford Road
Katonah, New York 10536
Handicap Accessible? Yes

Date: Sunday, April 7, 2019
Times: 3:45 pm - 5:30 pm

Ticket pricing:


Presenter: Katonah Poetry Series
Presenter Phone: 914-232-3508