Vermont College of Fine Arts

RICHARD JACKSON is the author of ten books of poems, most recently Resonance (Ashland, ‘10), Half Lives: Petrarchan Poems (Autumn House, ‘04), Unauthorized Autobiography: New and Selected Poems (Ashland, ‘03), and Heartwall (UMass, Juniper Prize '00), as well as four chapbook adaptations from Pavese and other Italian poets. He recently translated a book of poems by Alexsander Persolja (Potvanje Sonca / Journey of the Sun) (Kulturno Drustvo Vilenica: Slovenia, 2007); Unlimited Voyage, a book of translations of the early-20th-century Italian poet, Giovanni Pascoli, is due from Red Hen in March. His own poems have been translated into over a dozen languages including a Selected Poems in Slovene. He has edited two anthologies of Slovene poetry, edits an eastern European Chapbook series and two journals, and 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. 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. He was a Fulbright Exchange poet to former Yugoslavia and returns each year with groups of students. He has been teaching at the Iowa Summer Festival, 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 and VCFA. In 2009 he won the AWP George Garret Award for teaching and writing.