Poets Jessica Jacobs and Nickole Brown will read from their newest collections Tuesday, April 2, at 5 p.m. in the Linfield College Austin Reading Room in Nicholson Library as part of the “Readings at the Nick” series.
Jacobs is the winner of the New Mexico Book Award in Poetry and an Over the Rainbow selection by the American Library Association for her book “Pelvis with Distance,” a biography in poems of Georgia O’Keeffe, which was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary and Julie Suk Awards.
Her poetry, essays and fiction have appeared in publications including Orion, New England Review, The Missouri Review, Alaska Quarterly Review and Guernica. Her other works include a chapbook, “In Whatever Light Left to Us,” which was published by Sibling Rivalry Press. Her second full-length collection, “Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going,” is forthcoming from Four Way Books.
Jacobs holds an MFA from Purdue University, where she served as the editor-in-chief of Sycamore Review, and a BA from Smith College. She is now the associate editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal.
Brown is the author of “Sister,” a novel-in-poems, and “Fanny Says,” a biography-in-poems. She is the editor for the Marie Alexander Poetry Series and teaches periodically at locations including the Sewanee School of Letters MFA Program, the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNCA and the Hindman Settlement School.
Brown is also working on what she describes as a “bestiary of sorts” inspired by her volunteer work at multiple animal sanctuaries. A clutch of these new poems recently won Rattle’s 2018 Chapbook Contest — “To Those Who Were Our First Gods” was published in 2018.
She received her MFA from Vermont College, studied literature at Oxford University, and was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson.
The reading is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Nicholson Library and the Linfield College English Department. For more information, contact Susan Barnes Whyte at 503-883-2517, swhyte@linfield.edu.
