Jean Day
Encyclopedia
Life and work
Born in Syracuse, New YorkSyracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
, and raised in Middletown, Rhode Island
Middletown, Rhode Island
Middletown is a town in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 16,150 at the 2010 census. It lies to the south of Portsmouth and to the north of Newport on Aquidneck Island, hence the name "Middletown."-Geography:...
, Day graduated from Antioch College
Antioch College
Antioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States. It was the founder and the flagship institution of the six-campus Antioch University system. Founded in 1852 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1853 with politician and...
in 1977. Since then she has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
and worked in literary publishing, currently as associate editor of Representations. She was acquisitions manager, then executive director of Small Press Distribution
Small Press Distribution
Small Press Distribution, or SPD, is a non-profit literary arts organization located in Berkeley, California. As their name indicates, the core of their mission is to act as an umbrella distributor and marketer for hundreds of smaller literary publishers...
from 1977 to 1989, developing close associations with many Bay Area writers and publishers, including Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian
Lyn Hejinian is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work My Life , as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry .-Life:Hejinian was born in the San...
, Bob Perelman
Bob Perelman
Bob Perelman is an American poet, critic, editor and teacher. He is often associated with the Language School group of poets. Perelman is Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.-Life and work:...
, Steve Benson
Steve Benson (poet)
Steve Benson is an American poet and performer. He is often associated with the Language poets. Benson lives in Downeast Maine where he is a licensed psychologist in private practice.-Life and work:...
, Johanna Drucker
Johanna Drucker
Johanna Drucker is an author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital aesthetics...
, Barrett Watten
Barrett Watten
Barrett Watten is an American poet, editor, and educator often associated with the Language poets.Since 1994, Watten has taught modernism and cultural studies at Wayne State University in Detroit...
, Alan Bernheimer
Alan Bernheimer
Alan Bernheimer , is an American poet, often associated with the San Francisco Language poets.-Biography:He attended Horace Mann School, and graduated in 1970 from Yale College, where he became friends with poets Steve Benson, Kit Robinson, Rodger Kamenetz, and Alex Smith and studied literature...
, Kit Robinson
Kit Robinson
Kit Robinson is an American poet and translator. An early member of the San Francisco Language poets circle, he has published 20 books of poetry.-Life and work:...
, Laura Moriarty, and Tom Mandel
Tom Mandel (poet)
Thomas Poeller Mandel is a contemporary American poet whose work is often associated with the Language poets.-Biography:...
. She is married to the philosopher and art critic John Rapko.
Day has published six books of poetry, and her work has appeared in a number of anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 2004
The Best American Poetry 2004
The Best American Poetry 2004, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by general editor David Lehman. The guest editor for the year was Lyn Hejinian....
, Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women (1998), and In the American Tree (1986). Her translations from the Russian (with Elena Balashova) have been anthologized in Third Wave: The New Russian Poetry (1992) and Crossing Centuries: The New Generation in Russian Poetry (2000). She has received awards and fellowships from the Fund for Poetry, the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
, the California Arts Council
California Arts Council
The California Arts Council is a state agency based in Sacramento. Its eleven council members are appointed by the Governor and the state Legislature...
, the George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation, the MacDowell Colony
MacDowell Colony
The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...
, and the Contemporary Arts Educational Project.
Books by Jean Day
- Linear C, Berkeley, 1983, Tuumba (Berkeley)
- Flat Birds, 1985, Gaz (San Francisco)
- A Young Recruit, 1988, Roof (New York)
- The I and the You, 1992, Potes & Poets, (Edgemont, CT)
- The Literal World, 1998, Atelos (Berkeley)
- Enthusiasm: Odes & Otium, 2006, Adventures in Poetry (New York)