Please note that Tyehimba Jess's residency has been postponed until Spring 2021. Please be on the lookout for updated information, which we will post as it becomes available. Thank you for your patience. Be safe and be well.
Tyehimba Jess is the author of two books of poetry, Leadbelly and Olio. Olio won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The Midland Society Author’s Award in Poetry, and received an Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. It was also nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN Jean Stein Book Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Leadbelly was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. The Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named it one of the “Best Poetry Books of 2005.”
Part of A Year of Creative Writers at Illinois 2020. Supported by the Presidential Initiative to Celebrate the Impact of the Arts and the Humanities.
