Spoon Jackson
Spoon Jackson (1957–) is a writer, poet, and teacher. He was sentenced to Life Without Possibility of Parole when he was twenty years old, and has written and published poems, essays, novels, memoirs, and plays for the more than forty years he has been behind bars. He is a creator of award-winning podcast Uncuffed, a show made by people behind bars in California prisons.
Jackson is the co-author of the double memoir By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives (New Village Press, 2010), with Judith Tannenbaum, and co-editor of the newly published homage to Tannenbaum, The Book of Judith: Opening Hearts Through Poetry (New Village Press, 2022) with Mark Foss and Sara Press. His poetry is collected in Longer Ago (2010).
Jackson has collaborated with other artists on several projects, including the Prison Music Project with Ani DiFranco; Spoon, a film by Michka Saäl; Barstow, a film by Rainer Komers; Three Poems by Spoon Jackson, a documentary by Michel Wenser; and Die Jim Crow, produced by Fury Young. He was interviewed in a recent feature from Olivia Durif, LA Review of Books.