Reuben Jackson was the long-time curator of the Smithsonian’s Duke Ellington Collection and is an educator and mentor for the Young Writers Project. He is also a founding member of the New Music-Theatre workshop and currently works for the organization as a librettist. His poems have been published in over forty anthologies and his first volume, fingering the keys, was picked for the Columbia Book Award. He is currently an archivist with the University of the District of Columbia’s Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives.