Richard Jones

Poet and editor Richard Jones was born in London, England, spent a peripatetic childhood in such varied places as Nova Scotia, Canada, and small-town North Carolina, and eventually settled in Norfolk, his father’s hometown. He received an MA from the University of Virginia and an MFA from Vermont College. His first collection of poetry, Country of Air (1986), won the Posner Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. He has since published more than a dozen additional collections, including Stranger on Earth (2018), The King of Hearts (2016), The Correct Spelling & Exact Meaning (2009), Apropos of Nothing (2006), and The Blessing: New and Selected Poems (2000), which won the Midland Authors Award. Jones’s poems are spare yet meditative; the Village Voice, reviewing Apropos of Nothing, observed, “Jones can be stunning, effortlessly finding the right tone. This is instinctive poetry, combining bluntness with reserve.” (Source)