Tyehimba Jess

Tyehimba Jess (born Detroit) is an American poet.

Life

He graduated from the University of Chicago, and New York University, with an MFA. He teaches poetry and fiction at CUNY College of Staten Island and is the faculty adviser for Caesura, the university's literary arts magazine.

In April 2016 Tyehimba Jess released OLIO, “part fact, part fiction….sonnet, song and narrative to examine the lives of mostly unrecorded African American performers….”^[1] In his book he writes some poems in reference to Edmonia Lewis, John William Boone, Henry Box Brown, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Fisk Jubilee Singers, Ernest Hogan, Sissieretta Jones, Scott Joplin, Millie and Christine McKoy, Booker T. Washington, Blind Tom Wiggins, Bert Williams and George Walker.

His work appeared in Soul Fires: Young Black Men on Love and Violence, Obsidian III: Literature in the African Diaspora, Power Lines: Ten Years of Poetry from Chicago's Guild Complex, and Slam: The Art of Performance Poetry.

Awards

• 2000 Duncan YMCA Writer's Voice Fellow
• Illinois Arts Council Artist Roster
• 2000 Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship
• 2001 Chicago Sun Times Poetry Award.
• 2001 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Awards
• 2001-2 Ragdale Fellow
• 2004 National Poetry Series
• 2004 NEA grant ^[2]
• 2006 Whiting Award ^[3]
• 2007 Lannan residency ^[4]

Works

Poetry

• "When I Speak of Blues Be Clear", Cave Canem
• "out". Ploughshares. Spring 2002. Archived from the original on August 20, 2006. 
• "freedom". Ploughshares. Spring 2002. Archived from the original on August 20, 2006. 
• "martha promise receives leadbelly, 1935", Poetry Foundation
• "harris county chain gang"; "home again"; "martha promise receives leadbelly, 1935", Perihelion
• Leadbelly. Verse Press. 2005. ISBN 978-0-9746353-3-0. 
• OLIO. Wave Books. 2016. ISBN 978-1-940696-22-5.

Anthologies

• Soulfires: Young Black Men in Love and Violence (1996)
• Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry (2000)
• Dark Matter 2: Reading the Bones (2004)

Non-fiction

• African American Pride: Celebrating Our Achievements, Contributions, and Enduring Legacy. Citadel Press. 2003. ISBN 978-0-8065-2498-6. 

Reviews

Tyehimba Jess ... coaxes an astonishingly rich world from the wood and steel scraps of the life he finds before him. He chronicles the story of Leadbelly — the killer, the lover, the victim, the son, the greatest bluesman of his time—and he has the chops to animate this complex man.^[5]

References

External links

• Tyehimba Jess's Wave Books author page
• "Tyehimba Jess", Fishouse
• "Tyehimba Jess", The Book of Voices
• "NINE LIVES OF CHICAGO POETRY: TYEHIMBA JESS", Chicago Poetry
• Poems by Tyehimba Jess at Nashville Review
• Profile at The Whiting Foundation