PLATTSBURGH -- Though he averages three reading/workshop/festival gigs a month, things are slowing down for poet Major Jackson.

At the University of Vermont, he is Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor. He is also a core faculty member at the Bennington Writing Seminars. Tonight, he is featured at Black Poetry Day at Plattsburgh State.

Jackson is the author of two collections of poetry, "Hoops" (Norton: 2006), a finalist for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literature -- Poetry; and "Leaving Saturn" (University of Georgia: 2002), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award.

His third volume of poetry, "Holding Company," is forthcoming from W.W. Norton in 2009.

"It is a collection of poems -- 10 lines long," Jackson said. "It's just a very arbitrary formal constraint and one that is allowing me to explore the power of the lyric. The subject matter ranges from love to divorce to intellectual exchange of the kinds of inheritances we receive, both social and literary."

DIVERSE VOICES

Jackson hails from North Philly and is a graduate of Temple University. He was a reader of poetry before penning his own verse. His achievements include a Whiting Writers' Award. He has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation, in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He was a Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at University of Massachusetts-Lowell. His stint as a creative-arts fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University led to his eventual appointment of poetry editor for the "Harvard Review."

"Their previous poetry editor (Don Share) went to the Poetry Foundation. He was the curator for the Woodbury Poetry Room in Harvard's Lamont Library. When he went to the Poetry Foundation, they (at "Harvard Review") asked me to help me with the slush pile."

He likened sifting through the reams of submissions to deep-sea diving. He found some jewels that appeared in the journal's last issue. He is credited as poetry editor on the next issue, which features diverse aesthetic voices playing off each other.

"Generational, regional, global. In the current issue, there are poems from New Zealand. It also gives me an opportunity to introduce poets I grew up on and some of the younger poets. It's very exciting to be in on that."

The digital age allows him to edit the journal and not be in Cambridge. Back in Burlington, his activities include hosting the Painted Word Poetry Series, which he started several years ago. At UVM's Fleming Museum, A-list poets are paired with emergent poets in New England.

"It's a wonderful way of honoring the local writer by having a series that highlights their creative efforts, their talents and gifts. They are writing about the particular area where we live."

At UVM, Jackson's creative-writing classes attract English majors who will not likely become critics.

"That has its challenges and its rewards."

On Monday nights, Jackson commutes to New York University, where he teaches "The Long Poem," a graduate class.