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The work of Rodney Jones (b. 1950 Alabama) frequently celebrates the relationships and events of the small, agrarian community he was born into, as well as preserves the kinds of vernacular speech he grew up hearing. Jones’s work is known for its investigation of place and memory, and its use of narrative, anecdote, and image. In books from his first celebrated debut, The Story They Told Us of Light (1980), which was chosen by Elizabeth Bishop for the Associated Writing Programs Award series, to the Pulitzer-prize nominated Elegy for the Southern Drawl (1999) and Salvation Blues (2006), which was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize, Jones has written narrative poems that are also philosophical meditations.  Rodney Jones is also a 2024 Chesterwood Writer-in-Residence.

Owen Lewis is the author of three collections of poetry and three chapbooks, most recently Knock-knock. Field Light, was a Distinguished Favorite, 2020 NYCBigBook Award and a 2021 “Must Read”, Mass Book Awards.  best man was the recipient of the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize of the New England Poetry Club. Recent prizes include the 2023 Guernsey International Poetry Prize and the 2023 Rumi Prize for Poetry/Arts & Letters. He is also recipient of the International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.  At Columbia University he is Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics and teaches Narrative Medicine.