Jewel Rodgers
HPPR Poets on the Plains, Featured PoetJewel Rodgers is the 2025–2029 Nebraska State Poet, a 2025 Academy of American Poets Fellowship recipient, and a 2025 AIRIES Fellow. A three-time Omaha Entertainment and Arts Award nominee for Best Performance Poet and a three-time TEDx speaker, she is a nationally touring interdisciplinary performer and spatial practitioner. Jewel merges art, storytelling, and placemaking to inspire and connect audiences across the U.S. and beyond. https://www.jewelrodgers.com/
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My name is Jewell Rodgers and I am the State Poet of Nebraska.Today we are hearing from Angélica Perez. Angélica is a Core Teaching Artist with the Nebraska Writers Collective, where she supports Teaching Artists and young poets, helps to run monthly open mics and slams in Omaha, and leads poetry workshops with incarcerated people throughout Nebraska. -
My name is Jewel Rodgers and I am your state Poet of Nebraska and I am going to read my poem Bloom for you. I wrote this poem with the intention of keeping it grounded in very concrete items—hibiscus, rose, agave, domino tables, spades, soup kitchens, city halls. I wanted it to move from the intimacy of tending to oneself to tending to an entire community.
