Assistant Professor of English Shaina Jones in the Department of English has been recognized as an extraordinary young poet by The Poetry Foundation.
Shaina Jones, assistant professor of English, has been selected as a fellow for the 2026 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellows by The Poetry Foundation.
The Fellowship program is among the largest award offered to young poets in the United States, it recognizes and provides monetary support to five poets who are between ages 21 and 31 years. Each fellow receives a subscription to “Poetry” magazine, $27,000 and an invitation to submit work to the venerated publication. The Poetry Foundation also supports the fellows’ attendance at the 2026 Dodge Poetry festival, where they will participate in their inaugural reading as a cohort.
“The fellowship is a really big deal for emerging or ‘young’ poets,” said Jones. “This fellowship puts me alongside a long list of gorgeously talented poets, thinkers and people — some of whom I have learned with and from, long admired and respected.
“Personally, this arrival signals that there’s something that is happening in my work that has translated or touched in an intended way. I have applied before with different poems, and this time I think something felt clearer or just more me, in what my current voice and view is. I think receiving this fellowship is a mixture of confidence and curiosity of risk, knowing your work, and the time being right and aligned.”
As part of the application process, Jones submitted a ten-page packet of poems and responses to prompts about her inspirations, what she hopes to do with her work, what she already sees her work doing and how the fellowship will support the work she wants to do.
As a fellow, Jones will read alongside her cohort at the Dodge Poetry Fest in New Jersey this October. The funding she received will allow her to complete upcoming projects, organize a small book tour and host a weekend writers retreat for her colleagues to write, read and think together.
“It feels amazing to be recognized with this honor,” said Jones. “I feel blessed and extremely proud of my work and my follow-through. I applied for this fellowship two other times and this particular time felt so settled for me; there were things I could feel had shifted in the work and that made me feel quite confident going into the application cycle.”
At 鶹Ƶ, Jones orients herself as a professor and a resource for the ‘real world’ as students consider writing as a career. She also teaches students how to use tools to communicate what they want to say on paper.
“I’m finding ways to show students what it means to do this work on a professional level and to equip them with as much as I can so they may consider writing beyond the classroom and turn it into an art skill,” said Jones. “Poetry influences what and who I bring into the classroom, and it informs how I teach publishing, revising, artistic stamina and the writing life overall.”
For Jones, talent is not all you need to be a writer; you need curiosity, discipline, a willingness to fail, a capacity for play and risk and a community.
“This fellowship is a huge honor,” Scott Proudfit, associate professor and chair of English said. “The Poetry Foundation, which publishes “Poetry” magazine, is the most important organization of its kind. Students will know it because of the foundation’s tremendous digital archive. Basically, anytime you search for a poem online you are directed to the foundation’s website — which is good, because you can trust their version of texts. Not only does Shaina receive significant financial support from the organization, she also gets to present her work at the 2026 Dodge Poetry Festival, a huge honor. 鶹Ƶ students adore Shaina because she is such a caring and responsive teacher, but, let’s face it, there is also something exciting about learning from someone recognized as a rising star in their discipline.”
Jones is the author of “To Be Named Something Else,” the winner of the 2023 Miller Williams Poetry Prize from University of Arkansas Press. Her work has appeared in “The Pinch Journal,” “Puerto del Sol,” “Foglifter Journal,” “The Offing,” “CRAFT Magazine,” “The Georgia Review,” and “Gulf Coast Journal.”
The Poetry Foundation also wrote a recognizing Jones as a fellow.
The fellowships were established in 1989 by the Indianapolis philanthropist Ruth Lilly and expanded in 2013 with a gift from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund.
The Poetry Foundation transforms lives through the power of words. Their work aims to amplify poetry and celebrate poets by fostering spaces for all to create, experience, and share poetry.