Last updated: April 1, 2023
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Sarah McCartt-Jackson
Kentucky poet, folklorist, naturalist, and educator Sarah McCartt-Jackson is the author of the awardwinning poetry collection Stonelight (Airlie Press), which won the Phillip H. McMath Award in Poetry, the Weatherford Award in Poetry, and the Airlie Prize. Her chapbooks include Calf Canyon (Brain Mill Press), Vein of Stone (Porkbelly Press), and Children Born on the Wrong Side of the River (winner of the Mary Ballard Poetry Prize). Her poems have appeared in Indiana Review, Bellingham Review, Journal of American Folklore, The Maine Review, among others, and she has exhibited her poetry in collaboration with visual and performance artists at several galleries. She has received support from the Kentucky Arts Council, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women, and Kentucky Foundation for Women.
In addition to teaching, Sarah has served as folklorist and oral historian for Great Smoky Mountains National Park, assistant curator for Mammoth Cave National Park, and artist-in-residence for both the Great Smoky Mountains and Catoctin Mountain National Parks.
Her poetry interprets scapes (landscape, homescape, culturescape) through the exploration of biological and cultural diversity, cultural history through tangible and intangible resources, and experience rooted in sanctuary and wilderness. She says, “Through poetry, I endeavor to inspire others to connect, reflect, meditate, and act for the future of our ecosystems of all sizes: from tidepool to marsh, from fir to fern.”
Visit her website at sarahmccarttjackson.com