On August 6, 2024, Patricia Spears Jones, adjunct associate professor of English, was awarded a $50,000 fellowship by the Academy of American Poets, in conjunction with her award as a 2024 Poet Laureate Fellow for New York. The Academy, supported by the Mellon Foundation, granted $1.1 million to its twenty-two Poet Laureate Fellows who will lead public poetry programs in their respective communities.
With this fellowship, Jones will develop and lead a series of intergenerational workshops focused on social justice, environmental degradation, systemic oppression, cultural resistance, and the meaning of beauty. Inspired by Walt Whitman’s "Democratic Vistas" essay, these workshops will encourage meaningful conversations rooted in Whitman’s belief that "a new Literature...a new Poetry" is essential to American democracy.
Jones has published five poetry collections, most recently The Beloved Community (2023). She has also written musical plays for Mabou Mines, including "Mother" (1994) and "A Song for New York: What Women Do When Men Sit Knitting" (2007). Jones has received numerous accolades, including two New York Foundation for the Arts grants, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award, the 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize, and The Porter Fund Literary Prize for Lifetime Achievement.