Welcome to the January 2020 Blue Heron Featured Author spotlight! And, also, Happy New Year to all of our readers! We are honored to share the work of poet, fiction writer, and critic Josephine Jacobsen (1908-2003), who was born in Ontario, Canada. Jacobsen served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in the early 1970s.

Twice a year, I try to include a voice from the past on our featured author page. It provides an opportunity to reflect on our rich history of poetry from past decades/centuries. It is important to pause and truly appreciate the influence of past authors on our own voices, as writers. Everything we create comes from our unique heart source, but we must also acknowledge that none of us would be the writers we are today, without the many, many trailblazers who came before us.

Please visit the Blue Heron Review Featured Author page of our site, to read 3 sample poems by Jospehine Jacobsen and to learn more about her literary legacy.

(photo credit: The Poetry Foundation)

“Poet, fiction writer, and critic Josephine Jacobsen [1908-2003] was born in Ontario, Canada, to American parents on vacation. Her father died when she was five, and afterward she and her mother moved around frequently, while Jacobsen was taught by private tutors. They settled in Maryland when Jacobsen was 14, and she would live there until her death almost 80 years later. She received the Shelley Memorial Award and the prestigious Robert Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America and served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in the early 1970s.” (*excerpted from The Poetry Foundation site)