Major Jackson was the 2006-2007 Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He has also served as a creative arts fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
Jackson is the author of two collections of poetry, "Hoops" and "Leaving Saturn".
Jackson was the winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award. He was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literature-Poetry for his work "Hoops". He has received the Whiting Writers' Award and has also been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress.
Jackson, born in Brooklyn, currently serves as an Professor of English at University of Vermont as well as an essential faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars. He is also the Poetry Editor of the Harvard Review.