Jackson was born in Augusta, Georgia, but grew up in DC and lived most of his life in the city. He was the author of three books of poems, the posthumous My Specific Awe and Wonder (2024), Scattered Clouds (2019, finalist for the Feathered Quill Book Awards), and Fingering the Keys (1991, winner of the Columbia Book Award for Poetry).
For over twenty years, he was a curator of the Smithsonian Institution’s Duke Ellington Collection, and he also worked as an archivist for the Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives at the University of the District of Columbia. Jackson taught writing at the Writer’s Center, and a high school in Burlington, Vermont. He was co-founder of the New Music-Theater workshop, and hosted Friday Night Jazz on Vermont Public Radio for 5 years, from 2013 to 2018, and co-hosted “The Sound of Surprise” on WPFW-FM. His music reviews appeared in the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Jazz Times, Downbeat, and on the NPR radio program “All Things Considered.” A poetry prize in his name was posthumously established at Howard University’s Creative Writing Program.