Jen Jabaily-Blackburn
Program and Outreach Coordinator, Boutelle-Day Poetry Center, Smith College
Biography
Born in Boston MA, Jen Jabaily-Blackburn is the author of the full-length collection Girl in a Bear Suit (Elixir Press, 2024) and the e-chapbook Disambiguation (Salamander/Suffolk University, 2024). She is the winner of the Louisa Solano Memorial Emerging Poet Award from Salamander, selected by Stephanie Burt, and was twice selected for Best New Poets in 2014 and 2016. Jabaily-Blackburn holds a B.A. in English from UMass-Amherst, and an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Arkansas. She returned to Western MA in 2011 and since then has worked with the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center (formerly The Poetry Center) at Smith College.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
I grew up Jewish, attending a Reform temple, in an area that was predominantly Catholic (the South Shore of MA) and as part of a Lebanese American local extended family on my father\’s side (mostly Eastern Orthodox). I appreciate Yetzirah’s perspective that Jewish poets write Jewish poems— this is to say that I am a Jewish poet, secular and atheist. Many of my poems don’t necessarily contain direct reference to Jewish observances or symbols, but my own Jewish sense of justice, humor, and protest inform my work.
Published Works
Girl in a Bear Suit (Elixir Press, 2024)
Disambiguation [eChapbook] (Salamander/Suffolk University, 2024)
Links to Sample Works
Links to Sample Works
Subject Matter
Art & Ekphrasis, Childhood, Cultural Identity, Environment & Climate Crisis, Family, Friendship, Misogyny, Motherhood/Fertility, Mythology, Nature, Parenting, Reproductive Justice, Visual Art, Feminism, Pop Culture.Profile created by Kylee Rieger, Yetzirah Intern .
