Major Jackson | A Bowl of Goodness: Nourishing Poems with a Side of Soup, Celebrating Community, Friendship, and Resilience

Phoenix Books is excited to welcome poet Major Jackson to Phoenix Books Burlington on Tuesday, November 17 at 7:00 PM for an evening of conversation about his latest anthology, A Bowl of Goodness: Nourishing Poems with a Side of Soup, Celebrating Community, Friendship, and Resilience! Major Jackson will be joined by reading partners, Maria Hummel, John Gennari, and Senator Rocket.  

Major Jackson is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems, recipient of the inaugural Patricia Willis Prize from Yale Library. His edited volumes include Best American Poetry 2019, Renga for Obama, and Library of America’s Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. Former host of The Slowdown Podcast, from American Public Media, he is the recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, John S. Guggenheim Foundation, and National Endowment of the Arts. Jackson lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He serves as poetry editor of The Harvard Review. Major Jackson is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts. 

About the book: Poetry and soup both offer sustenance and comfort. And yet, the secret ingredient to every great meal is not what we see on the plate, but who we see around the table. This anthology features poems by today’s best poets that embody the idea of nourishment, comfort, and connection across cultures and generations. Among the poems are 24 of Major’s own favorite soup recipes: from apple-parsnip to gumbo, borscht to bouillabaisse, there’s something to tickle and warm all tastebuds. Sprinkled throughout are side-dishes of soup-inspired stories by award-winning writers and chefs, including Ann Patchett and chef Jim Huntington of Maple Soul. Other contributors include Garrett Hongo, Jane Hirshfield, Pablo Neruda, Natasha Tretheway, Paul Muldoon, Rita Dove, Ilya Kaminsky, Kwame Dawes, Gary Snyder, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Kevin Young, and more

Reading Partners: 

Maria Hummel is a novelist and poet. Her novel, Still Lives, was a Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club pick, Book of the Month pick, and BBC Culture Best Book of 2018, and has been optioned for television and translated into multiple languages. She is also the author of Lesson in Red; Motherland, a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year; and Horse and Fire, winner of the APR/Honickman Poetry Prize. She has worked and taught at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Stanford University; and the University of Vermont. She lives in Vermont with her husband and sons.

John Gennari is professor of English and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Flavor and Soul: Italian America and Its African American Edge and Blowin' Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics. 

Senator Rocket is a storyteller and the founder of Eat Vermont. An alumnus of The Putney School and Middlebury College and a Vermont Law School Graduate, he's passionate about the power of storytelling to build empathy and relentless in his pursuit to foster stronger connections across Vermont. 

Noah Warren is a poet and critic. His books of poetry are The Complete Stories, published by Copper Canyon in 2021, and The Destroyer in the Glass, chosen by Carl Phillips for the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets. His poetry has been recognized by a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and awards from Yale and UC Berkeley, and has been supported by the James Merrill House and the Hawthornden Foundation. He holds a PhD in English from Berkeley and serves as the Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont. 

DATE: Tuesday, November 17, 2026 at 7:00 PM 

LOCATION: Phoenix Books Burlington, 89 Church Street, Burlington, VT 

TICKETS: Tickets are FREE. Phoenix Books has adopted an RSVP-based system, and you can RSVP through the Seven Days Tickets website. Your RSVP grants you a $3.00 off coupon for A Bowl of Goodness: Nourishing Poems with a Side of Soup, Celebrating Community, Friendship, and Resilience by Major Jackson. 

BOOKS: Copies of A Bowl of Goodness: Nourishing Poems with a Side of Soup, Celebrating Community, Friendship, and Resilience by Major Jackson will be available for purchase at the event.