By Michael Foster-Sanders/campus editor
Living Literature, a TCC staple since the 1970s, will this year feature author and poet Major Jackson.
Each year, the NE English department invites nationally known writers to talk to students, read and answer questions, said English associate professor Rebecca Balcarcel. The department voted to select this year’s speaker and Jackson won.
“The faculty felt for the last few events that we didn’t have a poet or a person of color, so it was time for someone who could bring a real flavor and artistry to the event,” she said.
Jackson has received the Whiting Writers Award, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress.
Balcarcel said what she likes about Jackson’s work is that he’s always speaking on multiple levels.
“You have the objects and the people in the poem, but there is some kind of emotional drama going on or some political statement or questions about the times,” she said. “He’s a brave poet.”
Living Literature
Major Jackson
6:30 p.m. April 18
9:30 a.m. April 19
NE Campus
Center Corner (NSTU 1615A)
