Tyehimba Jess
Tyehimba Jess’ first book of poetry, leadbelly, is a collection of lyric poems which tell the story of blues man, Huddie “Leadbelly” Leadbetter, and was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. He is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a 2006 Whiting Writers Award, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004, the 2001 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award, an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Poetry, the 2001 Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award, and has twice been on the Chicago Green Mill Slam teams. He currently teaches in the English Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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