History of the Robb Jackson Award
Every year we celebrate the memory of Dr. Robb Jackson through our Youth Robb Jackson Poetry Contest. We invit creative writing teachers and/or English teachers from all local high schools to nominate poems by their students.
Poems will be read by a panel of judges. Student work will be “read blind,” meaning the judges will not know the names or home schools of the student poets. Judges will select finalists and first, second, and third place winners.
All finalists will be invited to participate in an awards ceremony on Saturday, February 24th. All finalists will receive an electronic gift card. First, second and third place winners will also receive copies of select poetry books.
Dr. Robb Jackson
Robb Jackson, M.F.A., Ph.D., CAPF, CJF was Regents Professor and Professor of English at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, where he was a rhetoric-composition specialist.
Robb’s poetry originated from his journal writing practice and was informed by close observation of his adopted home, Corpus Christi, Texas. While still in Ohio, Robb had a chapbook called Arthur Zen Comes to America (1981) and a pamphlet Junctures (1983) published.
His first full book of poetry, Living on the Hurricane Coast (2003), contains poems that stem from his transition from his northern roots of Huron, Ohio to a new life along the Gulf Coast of south Texas. From Halsdon Mill Cottage (2005) a poem cycle written about and around the Halsdon Mill Cottage in England that was part of his in-laws, the Furse family. Child Support (2010) was written over a 20-year period during and after his separation and divorce from his four children’s mother. Crane Creek, Two Voices (2011) is a collection of facing poems by Robb and his wife of 26 years, Vanessa Furse Jackson. This posthumous collection, Open Heart (2013) was collection of Robb’s poetry that had been published in the Journal of Poetry Therapy. Robb Jackson died of a heart attack in his last semester before retirement in January 2013.
Vanessa Furse Jackson
