18 Facts About Josephine Jacobsen

Josephine Jacobsen was a Canadian-born American poet, short story writer, essayist, and critic.

Josephine Jacobsen was appointed the twenty-first Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1971.

The baby Jacobsen weighed only two-and-a-half pounds and was not expected to survive.

Josephine Jacobsen was taken to New York at age three months.

Josephine Jacobsen's brother suffered a nervous breakdown; her mother suffered bouts of manic depression.

At age fourteen, Josephine Jacobsen moved to Maryland with her mother and lived there until her death.

Josephine Jacobsen's mother never went to college, but like her daughter she was a "tremendous reader".

Josephine Jacobsen described seeing her poem in print in St Nicholas as the "most amazing feeling" and "a special occasion".

For Josephine Jacobsen, it was "the writing itself, not prizes or possible honors, that mattered the most".

Josephine Jacobsen said that the "greatest thing" she can feel about one of her poems is that it has " helped another human being in a really bad time".

Josephine Jacobsen wrote short stories, including the collections A Walk with Raschid and Other Stories, On the Island, and What Goes Without Saying.

Josephine Jacobsen's nonfiction writing includes reviews, lectures and essays for such publications as Commonweal, The Nation, and The Washington Post.

Between 1978 and 1979, Josephine Jacobsen was Vice President of the Poetry Society of America.

In 1984, Josephine Jacobsen was lecturer for the American Writers Program annual meeting in Savannah, GA.

In 1993, Josephine Jacobsen received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.

In 1997, Josephine Jacobsen was awarded the Poets' Prize for her In the Crevice of Time: New and Collected Poems.

Josephine Jacobsen received honorary Doctorates of Humane Letters from Goucher College, Notre Dame of Maryland University, Towson University, and Johns Hopkins University.

Josephine Jacobsen was known for "elegant, concise phrasing on a wide range of topics and in varied forms" in which she "plumbed questions of identity, interrelatedness and isolation".