Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, Jessica received her B.A. summa cum laude in English and Comparative Literature: Language Theory from SUNY Buffalo, where she participated in the Poetics Program, started the poetry magazine name, and won the Academy of American Poets Prize twice. After completing a Master’s in Comparative Literature with a thesis entitled “Sonic Territories: Deleuze and the Politics of Sound in Kafka and Duras” (directed by Henry Sussman), Jessica lived in Sweden, Germany and Austria on a series of scholarships from 2003-2005. In 2010, Jessica completed the Master of Library Science degree and returned to Alabama, where she is now employed as the Head Librarian at a private high school.
Jessica is the author of one full-length collection of poetry, Organic Furniture Cellar (Outside Voices/Bootstrap Productions 2006). Since 2001, her work has been published in multiple magazines and anthologies. Her poetry and poetics have been translated into Turkish, Swedish, Icelandic, Arabic and Danish. She is also the Editor of Outside Voices Press and has undertaken many design and editorial projects, some as hobbies and some as jobs.
Jessica’s research interests include Contemporary American Poetry and European Modernism, and her favorite French philosopher is Deleuze. As a working poet-artist with these literary interests, she has an obsessive love for artists’ books and rare books, especially when they exemplify the beauty of traditional printing and binding methods. Thus much of her library experience has taken place at the intersection of public, academic, rare books, and digital libraries as she has worked on multiple digitization projects, both paid and voluntary.
As Jessica has many years of university-level teaching under her belt along with creative directorship experience on many kinds of projects, she is adept at project management, including organizing people and resources toward individual, group, department, and organization-level goals.
Jessica Smith
