On a Friday morning in late August, hundreds of real estate professionals packed into a ballroom in Omaha’s convention center. Developers, architects, brokers, attorneys — and one poet.

“This is your fair warning,” Jewel Rodgers told the crowd as she stepped onstage at the front of the room. “I am a spoken word poet. Yes, a poet is opening your conference today.”

Omaha’s annual Commercial Real Estate Summit might seem like an unusual venue for Rodgers, Nebraska’s current state poet, who serves as one of the Cornhusker State’s chief ambassadors for literature and literacy. She would be the first to acknowledge this — and did so in her poem that morning.

“Sure I talk nice, stand tall, walk with such grace,” she said. “But I'm sure you must be thinking, ‘What could this poet possibly know about real estate?’”

Quite a lot, it turns out.

Of all the poets who have served as Nebraska’s top literary advocate since the position was first established in the early 1980s, Rodgers might have the most unorthodox background. 

Top of the list is her graduate degree in real estate development and her history of transforming vacant lots in North Omaha into community parks. Until recently, she also was working full time at a commercial real estate development company in Omaha. And while studying business administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, she worked as a grassroots organizer, facilitating community discussions and knocking doors in the Near South and Everett neighborhoods.

“I'm a very unconventional case,” Rodgers told the Flatwater Free Press. “My journey just looks a lot different.”

She is the first Black state poet, as well as the daughter of Nebraska football legend and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rodgers. 

At 28, she is also the youngest person ever named to the role. But that hasn’t stopped her from building a lengthy resume or from putting her own stamp on the job. She’s a well-known figure in Nebraska’s poetry slam scene and a past nominee for best performance poet at the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards. 

Earlier this year, she was awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Academy of American Poets and published her debut poetry collection, a multimedia production created in collaboration with Omaha-based photographers.

And unlike many of Nebraska’s most well-known literary stars, Rodgers is — as she reminded the real estate crowd that morning — a spoken word poet. She exudes confidence in front of large crowds and invites them to participate: to snap, clap and murmur their appreciation if she says something that moves them.

“You go see Jewel read, and she really puts her all into it and does a great job of engaging the audience,” said Matt Mason, a former state poet. “She's one of the best at that.”

That engagement is key. While the state poet’s duties are rather loosely defined, the office’s overarching goal is to advocate for poetry, literature and literacy across Nebraska. But because many people’s experience with poetry could be described as “that thing they hated in high school,” that’s no small task.

“A lot of people are like, ‘Yeah, (poetry) is something people do in classrooms, and this is really not for me,’” said Alliya Dagman, a friend and creative collaborator.

But Rodgers’s approach is to invite people in and make them feel connected to her poems, which can make a huge difference for a newcomer, Dagman said.

“There is a sense that she is directly talking to you, speaking to you, addressing you,” she said. “I've attended many kinds of poetry readings, a lot of them in academic settings, and that is very rare for poets who are primarily writing for the page.”

The first (and only) Nebraska poet laureate

In 1921, Nebraska became the second state in the union to name a poet laureate, an honor it bestowed upon John Neihardt. While best known today for his book “Black Elk Speaks,” at the time Neihardt was lauded for his verse, including a multi-volume epic about the settlement of the Great Plains.

“Nebraskans, for all their proverbial hardy ruggedness and practical sensibility, showed themselves among the first to appreciate Dr. Neihardt’s quiet poetic genius — enough so to create by an unprecedented legislative act the post of poet laureate,” wrote the Lincoln Star in 1971.

After Neihardt’s death in 1973, the Nebraska Legislature didn’t appoint another poet laureate. The state began searching seriously in 1981 — a process that became unexpectedly tense after an Omaha World-Herald story suggested the new laureate might be recognized during the halftime show of an upcoming Nebraska-Iowa football game.

Poets in the state revolted.

Over a dozen potential candidates, including future U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser, wrote an outraged letter to the Nebraska Committee for the Humanities, which also ran in several newspapers, claiming their work was “cheapened by the publicity.” Honoring any single writer as poet laureate, they argued, would devalue “the many literary artists who contribute to the rich diversity of creative activity within Nebraska.”

While the committee didn’t completely heed the letter’s call to “abandon its quest,” it did change course. Slightly.

Instead of appointing a new poet laureate, the state created a new position — state poet — and selected Bill Kloefkorn, a professor at Nebraska Wesleyan University, to fill it. Meanwhile, Neihardt was designated poet laureate “in perpetuity.”

Kloefkorn took an active but mostly unheralded approach to the role. Subsequent state poets began to elevate the position’s public profile.

After Kloefkorn’s death in 2011, one of his former students, Twyla Hansen, was picked for the role in 2013. The position was also changed to a five-year term rather than a lifetime appointment. 

One of Hansen’s goals was to communicate better with the public about the work she was doing.

“When I came into the position, I said, ‘I want to bring it into the 21st century,’” she said. “Because Bill didn't even have email.”

Mason, who followed Hansen and served as state poet from 2019 to 2024, went a step further. He began his tenure with the ambitious goal of holding a poetry event in every one of Nebraska’s 93 counties. And despite being interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mason pulled it off, ultimately hosting 628 events across the state.

Doing this kind of public outreach mattered to Mason, in part because of the popular but mistaken belief that poetry can’t be accessible or entertaining.

“I'm really proud that I did a poetry event — at least one — in every county,” Mason said. “But I think it's absolutely important that this kind of work still happen, whether it's me or other poets. It's not something that's ever finished.”

‘A commanding presence’ 

Like Mason, Rodgers views her primary job as bringing new people to poetry.

In fact, her potential to widen the audience for poetry in the state may have given her an edge in the selection process.

“By the time we heard Jewel’s performance when she interviewed, we all thought, ‘You know, if we're looking for something that's gonna engage audiences around the state and turn more people on to poetry, this is sure it,’” said former professor Chuck Peek, who served on the committee that nominated Rodgers for the position.

Her ability to take over a stage was evident from the very beginning, he said.

“Before she'd done anything except to say hello, you felt you were in the room with a commanding presence,” Peek said.

Then he paused.

“I would not say that it's a universal trait of poets,” he added with a chuckle.

It’s hard to imagine the poets who objected to being honored at a football game performing at a commercial real estate summit. But Rodgers wants to ensure more people — in Nebraska, across the country and even around the world — can experience the state’s homegrown literary talent.

Hansen, who also served on the selection committee, said Rodgers wants to get students and young people more involved in poetry, as well as people of color and underserved communities that might not have an equal opportunity to experience poetry.

“It bridges a gap when they can see that she's warm and friendly, a real person,” Hansen said.

One of Rodgers’s main projects is to host five poetry showcases across Nebraska’s three congressional districts. These will be opportunities for her to highlight other Nebraska writers. But Rodgers said they also will be “a bit of a party” — that is, entertaining, full of music, and intended to hook people who might not otherwise find their way to a standard poetry reading. 

Another goal is to take local writers on the road. She’s planning at least four trips to other states and at least two outside the U.S. during her tenure.

People know Nebraska has produced great poets, Rodgers said. But sometimes their perception of the state’s poetry scene is rooted in stereotypes: that Nebraska poets all write poems about nature, for example.

“I'm very interested in seeing Nebraska be more well-known for all that it is,” she said.

Rodgers also said she’d love to see future state poets be paid more for their work. The position, she said, pays $10,000 a year, but only for the first two years — not even close to a full-time wage. 

When she was appointed to the role by Gov. Jim Pillen in January, Rodgers was still working a corporate job at Noddle Companies, an Omaha-based real estate firm. But after being awarded an Academy of American Poets fellowship in July, she decided to make poetry her full-time profession.

“I'm very much a working artist in the truest form,” Rodgers said. “Earning fellowships, earning residencies and doing speaking engagements is truly at this time how I make my living.”

Dagman, her friend and collaborator, said this kind of change was a huge financial risk for Rodgers, especially at a time when funding for arts is under threat.

“I have seen a lot of my friends who have gone from literary or teaching or creative careers into the corporate world. I have never seen the reverse,” Dagman said. “She's not just passionate, she's also very courageous to be undertaking something like this.”

The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.