Jewel Rodgers is the 2025–2029 Nebraska State Poet. She has been a spoken word poet for over a decade, performing in schools, festivals, community spaces, conferences, and public events. As an interdisciplinary poet, performer, and visual artist, she’s shared her work across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, with appearances in spoken word, public speaking, and multimedia projects like 100 Years | 100 Women (Park Avenue Armory – NY), TEDxLincoln (Lincoln, NE), and Amplifying the Black Experience (Opera Omaha – Omaha, NE).
She’s a three-time Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards nominee for Best Performance Poet in Omaha and a three-time TEDx speaker. Her recognitions include being a 2022 Union for Contemporary Art Fellow, a 2023 Andy Warhol Populus Fund Grantee, and a 2024 finalist in the Blackberry Peach Poetry Slam. She also teaches with the Nebraska Writers Collective.
Alongside her creative work, Jewel is focused on reshaping the built environment. As a Buffett Scholar, she earned her bachelor’s in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and her master’s in Real Estate Development from New York University. Today, she’s staying true to her childhood dream by owning, operating, and developing projects that mindfully shape the landscape of North Omaha.
Jewel often says her poetry education has come from her community, and it’s this community-first approach that drives her vision as State Poet. Her goal is to keep poetry accessible and relevant to all Nebraskans through spoken word, with three key initiatives: education through poetry, increasing access in all communities, and supporting Nebraska writers.
––bio courtesy of Jewel Rodgers
What has been your greatest challenge in getting to the position that you are in today?
My greatest challenge has been managing all of my interests and responsibilities at once. Sometimes, I truly don’t have enough hours in the day to present, market, sell, travel, work my “day job”, write, clean, mow, respond, “hangout,” and and and. Nonetheless, this role has been a great honor and a great responsibility. While there are no specific requirements attached to being State Poet, aside from advocating for poetry, literature, and literacy, I feel very passionate about making this time extremely memorable for myself and others.
What is the main goal for your career?
To be the freest, truest, most authentic form of myself in all things. I want to build a life where I have the privilege and capacity to show up as I am and spend the majority of my time doing what I love. This can likely only be achieved through creative and financial freedom. This means I have to be intentional about building work that is celebrated broadly while being true to myself.This also means I have to pay good attention to the business of the arts, as well as other streams of income that are proportionately more passive than active.
If there was one message you wanted people to take away from your poetry, what would it be?
Be as courageous as possible, as often as possible. Don’t wait around for other people to “come along” for too long. At some point, you have to believe that what your intuition is telling you is true.
When did you realize you had a passion for poetry?
Twelve years old. I came across a book of Maya Angelou poems. I was hooked and began writing. It is important to note that I also learned the art of public speaking, from Paul Bryant, through the Wesley House as a youth. It is only because of the Wesley House that I later became a spoken word poet.
If you could restart your poetic journey, where would you begin?
I’d gather more confidence at a much younger age. I didn’t “come out of my shell” until college. I wasted a lot of time hiding whilst simultaneously trying to be a strong adult - as a child. I should have embraced my youth while proactively addressing the root of my insecurities. Of course, at such an age, I did not know how to do that or what that even meant. I would also read more contemporary poetry.
What does it mean to you to be an accomplished writer?
By my own personal standard, I’d probably need a best-selling book or a “huge success” to call myself an accomplished writer. That would need to be coupled with thousands of hours of research, reading, and crafting. Furthermore, the writing, the book, the written word, would likely have to be paying my bills. To me, while seemingly superficial, these are the results of being an accomplished writer. If I were asked today, I’d say I’m not an accomplished writer - I’m an accomplished multi-disciplinary poet. I consider myself to be an accomplished speaker, performer, and spoken word artist.
How do you create and use rhythm in a piece?
The rhythm of a piece comes naturally for me. Sometimes, out of the many words I put on the page, only some carry that rhythm. The rhythm is in the effective transferring of emotion. I chisel away until it all flows audibly. In fact, part of my process is actually recording myself reading the poem in my natural cadence. This becomes another way for me to assess the rhythm. I do this over and over again until I find that the rhythm doesn’t break - that the poem keeps me engaged the entire way through. That’s how the rhythm is used - to carry one through.
I don’t force a rhythm, I follow it.
What inspired you to do performance poetry?
Learning the art of public speaking through Wesley House is what opened the door to everything else. I started off pretty scared and intimated, but I kept practicing. Then, I began to love it. I loved being an engaging speaker; spewing out romantics and engaging a room. It felt like a superpower to speak in front of a room and not bore them. I loved it! I loved class presentations and debate (I only did one year in middle school). I loved taking people out of the mundane through the emotions I was able to present on stage. It was like, if even for a moment, I was jolting people back to life. I was making them feel.
Thinking about where you are in your career now, what inspired you to begin writing in the first place?
Happening upon Maya Angelou, learning public speaking, and being celebrated for my potential is what inspired me. It is important that we celebrate the potential of young people. It was important for me.
By sixth grade, I had already become familiar with Maya Angelou and with public speaking. My sixth grade teacher, Tommie Green, tasked us with writing a poem and sharing the poem out loud. As I finished mine, my friend said, “how did you read it like that?” She was impressed. Mr. Green complimented my piece. That is an important core memory that I have.
That moment was me being celebrated for who I was and who I was becoming. It is important that we celebrate that with all kids. Imagine if I were told that poetry and speaking were not important, before I got going. Granted, I have been told those things before, but that was after I’d already poured into it as a passion. Imagine if I were told just as I was getting started! I would have been robbed, and would have robbed myself, of the future I now live in.
***
Interview Contributors:
Aspyn Chapin
Darbie deFreese
Hallie Hartman
Claire Hudson
Alizabeth McDermott
Cosmo Morain
Tynlie Struss
Jaelyn Trew
Samantha Vinchattle