UVM English Professor Major Jackson is the author of four poetry collections and has published widely in journals and magazines including the New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, and the New York Times. Perhaps his most ambitious work yet is an online project launched in January that already has over 250 authors and won’t be completed until April 30, a date that marks the first 100 days after President Obama’s term ended. “Renga for Obama” is an ode to the 44^th president—it can be read as it evolves on the Harvard Review website.

“There are some figures deserving of an epic,” said Jackson. “I was contemplating ways we could celebrate Obama with some kind of literary sendoff.”

Jackson, who is poetry editor of the Review, kicked around the idea with editor Christina Thompson, managing editor Chloe Garcia Roberts and digital editor Laura Healy. Out of these discussions, Jackson reached out to his list of poet friends and asked them to craft submissions in a traditional Japanese form in which writers compose a “tan-renga” of two stanzas.

The first stanza is haiku (three lines of five, then seven, then five syllables) and is followed by the “waki,” a two-line response with seven syllables in each line. The poets collaborate in pairs, one generating the haiku and the other answering with the waki to create the tan-renga. A new tan-renga appears on the Harvard Review website every day through April.

Nearly every poet Jackson contacted wanted to be in on the project—there was only one firm “no” and very few non-responses.

“Not all contributors are left-leaning progressives or Democrats,” Jackson said. “Some have taken issue with Obama’s policies but I’ve reminded them that while there will be many opportunities in the future to assess his presidency, this is meant to be in the spirit of celebrating his historic presidency.”

Jackson also took on the task of pairing the poets, looking for similarities in style and themes. He likes the symmetry of the work as it has evolved.

“I think the discipline of Japanese poetry, interwoven with the themes of political leadership and nature, really allowed the poem to blossom.”

The writers contributing to the project reads like a Who’s Who of contemporary poets, beginning with the January 21 pairing of U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky and Carol Muske-Dukes. UVM authors include Eve Alexandria, Maria Hummel, David Huddle and Didi Jackson.

Jackson says he has a surprise in store for the final renga April 30. “I’m pretty sure it’s all lined up but I don’t want to say who it is yet,” he says with a smile.

Read more about this story in the Washington Post.