Poet and playwright Patricia Spears Jones is the the 2017 recipient of the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers. The judges praised Jones for her “sophisticated and moving” work. Her books of poems are Painkiller, Femme du Monde and, most recently, A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems. “Patricia Spears Jones’ poems are made of fever, bones, and breath. The fever of eros, the bones of family and friends, and the breath of everyday existence. She is an accessible poet, but never boring,” the citation reads. “More of us should know who she is, and even more should read her.”
