Jackson Poetry Prize

The Jackson Poetry Prize, established in 2006, honors an American poet of exceptional talent who has published at least one book of recognized literary merit but has not yet received major national acclaim. The $50,000 prize is designed to provide what all poets need—time and the encouragement to write. There is no application process for the Jackson Poetry Prize—nominees are identified by a group of poets selected by Poets & Writers who remain anonymous; final selection is made by a panel of esteemed poets.

The 2008 Jackson Poetry Prize recipient is Tony Hoagland, who was selected by Philip Levine, Robert Pinsky, and Ellen Bryant Voigt.

Tony Hoagland is the author of three volumes of poetry: What Narcissism Means to Me (Graywolf Press, 2003); Donkey Gospel (Graywolf Press, 1998), winner of the James Laughlin Award of The Academy of American Poets; and Sweet Ruin (University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry; as well as a collection of essays about poetry, Real Sofistakashun (Graywolf Press, 2006). His poems and critical essays have appeared widely in journals and anthologies such as American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Ploughshares. He is the winner of the 2005 O.B. Hardison Jr. Prize. Awarded by the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is the only national prize to recognize a poet's teaching as well as his art. Hoagland also received the 2005 Mark Twain Award, given by the Poetry Foundation in recognition of a poet's contribution to humor in American poetry. Hoagland currently teaches in the poetry program at the University of Houston. He is also on the faculty of the Warren Wilson low-residency MFA program.

In 2007, Elizabeth Alexander was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Jackson Poetry Prize by the poets Lucille Clifton, Stephen Dunn, and Jane Hirshfield.

The Jackson Poetry Prize is made possible by a significant gift from the Liana Foundation.

Below is a poem by 2008 Jackson Poetry Prize recipient, Tony Hoagland.

IN THE PAINTING THE ALLEGORY OF THE TEMP AGENCY,

the employers are depicted as wolves
with bloodred mouths and yellow greedy eyes,
pursuing the small-business employees through the dark

forest of capitalism. It is night, and
by the light of the minimum-wage moon we can see
the long pink tongues of the bosses hanging out

and the dilated white eyeballs of the employees as they flee
through woods, lacking any sense of
solidarity or collective organizing power.

Upon closer inspection the leaves beneath their feet
are shredded dollar bills which bear
the distressed expressions of ex-presidents

and the wind in the trees is making a long
howl of no health insurance or job security
and No, it is not really a very good painting,

heavy-handed in concept, and unintentionally
comic in a way that
invites us to laugh at the desire for justice –

Rather, the painting shows that the artist was untalented,
and is an allegory of how difficult it is
to be both skillful and sincere

which in turn explains why the art
that hangs in the lobbies of banks
and in the boardrooms of corporate office buildings

is often made of black and white slashes
against a background of melted orange crayon
or glowing lavender rectangles floating in grey haze,

works in which no human figures appear,
in which the Haves
do not appear to be chatting and laughing

as they eat their sushi
carved from the lives of the Have-Nots.