Tyehimba Jess

Biography Early life Tyehimba Jess was born Jesse S. Goodwin. He grew up in Detroit, where his father worked in that city's Department of Health. His father later became the first vice president of Detroit's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Jess's first book of poetry, leadbelly (Wave Books, 2005), was chosen by Brigit Pegeen Kelly as a winner in the 2004 National Poetry Series competition. Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named it one of the "Best Poetry Books of 2005".

In April 2016, Jess released his second full-length poetry collection, titled Olio. This work has been described as "part fact, part fiction….sonnet, song and narrative to examine the lives of mostly unrecorded AfricanAmerican performers…." 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.

Jess's work has 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.

Works Inspiration Jess's inspiration for writing stems from his drive to express history through expression and performance.

Poetry "When I Speak of Blues Be Clear", Cave Canem

"martha promise receives leadbelly, 1935", Poetry Foundation "harris county chain gang"; "home again"; "martha promise receives leadbelly, 1935", Perihelion

Olio. Wave Books. 2016. .

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

"Ancestral Wealth – The Sacred Black Masculine in My Life", Boston Review, February 5, 2021.

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 2001–2002: Ragdale Fellow 2004: National Poetry Series 2004: NEA grant 2006: Whiting Award 2007: Lannan residency 2017: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2017: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award 2017: Kate Tufts Discovery Award: Finalists for Olio