“Where a book is a wizard that makes everything come true,” Major Jackson, Library Ode.

Now on permanent display on the 2nd floor of the Library is a grand, beautifully framed copy of Major Jackson’s poem, Library Ode, brought to life by calligrapher Lydia Batten. Major wrote this poem in 2020 to support the Library Foundation’s Capital Campaign. Mr. Jackson lived in South Burlington until 2021 where he served at UVM as a University Distinguished Professor in the English Department. He now lives in Nashville, Tennessee where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He is currently the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review and has published poems and essays in American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Orion Magazine, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry London, and Zyzzva. Major has also published several books of verse, many of which are on the Library shelves.

Visit our YouTube channel for a video of Major reading his Ode for us.