Jonathan Teklit

Jonathan Teklit was born in Alexandria, Virginia and raised in Dubai. He is a senior at Franklin and Marshall College and is working towards a joint major in psychology and creative writing. Teklit is the winner of the 2019 Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award for his poem "Black Mythology." About the poem, judge Marilyn Chin says:

“This brilliant and powerful retelling of the Greek myth of Icarus recasts a runaway slave as protagonist and hero. In just fourteen lines the compressed narrative grips us, and our shameful history of slavery is revealed in a compact quasi-sonnet frame. The words and images are carefully chosen for their spectacular symbolic power. For instance: ‘North’ and ‘unfamiliar South’ cleverly describe both the flight and fall of Icarus as well as plot the trail of the Great Migration. The haunting image of the Middle Passage—the ocean ‘bloated blue with bodies of kin’—closes the poem with stunning reverberations. I look forward to reading more poems by Jonathan Teklit in the future!”