Reuben Jackson
Reuben Jackson, photo courtesy of the author.
Reuben Jackson, a Vermonter at heart, was a poet, jazz scholar, radio DJ, and music critic, born in Georgia and raised in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Goddard College in 1978. After several years in Washington D.C., Jackson returned to Vermont and worked as an English teacher at Burlington High School and was a mentor with The Young Writers Project. He later hosted Friday Night Jazz on Vermont Public Radio from 2012 to 2018. Jackson served as the curator of the Smithsonian’s Duke Ellington Collection in Washington, D.C. and was the archivist with The University of The District Of Columbia’s Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives. His music reviews have been published in the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Jazz Times, and featured on All Things Considered.
His poems have been published in over forty anthologies. His first volume of poetry, fingering the keys, which Joseph Brodsky picked for the Columbia Book Award, was published in 1991. His second collection Scattered Clouds: New & Selected Poems was published by the Santa Fe Writer’s Project in 2019. Jackson’s poetry was included in This Is The Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets, edited by Kwame Alexander and published by Little, Brown and Company in 2024.
His newest poetry collection is scheduled for publication with Rootstock in 2024. We are heartbroken that Jackson died in Washington, D.C., on February 16, 2024.
From the publisher: “Reuben’s rhythmic and musical poems are a great achievement in merging love, beauty, justice, and the lived Black experience in America; his voice will be greatly missed. On a personal note, he was a great friend and I will forever cherish our hugs, smiles, laughs, and talks. And miss that loving smooth voice.”
