164. Jewel Rodgers on Placemaking and Making Space for Big Ideas in Omaha

On today's show, Maria Corpuz is in conversation with Jewel
Rodgers - a poet, artist and placemaker from North Omaha. She was
a Buffett Scholar at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and went
on to receive a Master’s in Real Estate Development from New York
University. She was nominated for best performance poet at the
2022 Omaha Entertainment and Arts Award. Her multi-sensory poetry
collection “Wax Over Water” received a Populus Fund Grant in 2023
through the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New
York, and she’s a 2023 fellow at the Union For Contemporary Art
in Omaha. 


Rodgers is a youth poetry coach at Culxr House with the Nebraska
Writers Collective. She also founded PlaceMade, a resident-led
group creating community spaces on vacant lots in North Omaha.