About us

Jacket2 offers commentary on modern and contemporary poetry and poetics. We publish articles, reviews, interviews, discussions and collaborative responses, archival documents, podcasts, and descriptions of poetry symposia and projects. We also publish discursive explorations and transcripts of material in the PennSound archive. Features in Jacket2 present a wide range of materials about and responses to the work of a single poet or group, and might include reissued or original poems. Jacket2 is also committed to preserving a full, searchable archive of Jacket Magazine issues 1–40, published between 1997 and 2010 by John Tranter, a database of more than a thousand pieces of criticism on contemporary poetry in addition to more than a thousand original works by poets from around the world.

Jacket2 (ISSN 2167-2326) is associated with PennSound and the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We gratefully acknowledge the ongoing support of Harry Groome (C’63), whose generous endowment gift helps sustain this website. Other supporters include Elisa Caterfino Mandel (C’83), the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, and the Office of the Provost at the University of Pennsylvania.

SUBMISSIONS
Jacket2 is not currently reading unsolicited submissions. Please note that Jacket2 publishes new poetry only as part of critical commentaries and features; we are not currently reading submissions of poetry.

CONTACT

Kelly Writers House
Jacket2 magazine
3805 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6150

email: info@jacket2.org

BOOKS FOR REVIEWS
Publishers, please send review copies to: Jacket2, Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6150. Please note that we cannot guarantee reviews of books sent for consideration.

Publisher
Al Filreis

Associate Publisher
Jessica Lowenthal

Editor
Michael S. Hennessey

Managing Editor
Magda Andrews-Hoke

Contributing Editors
Julia Bloch
Pam Brown
Sarah Dowling
Knar Gavin
Katie L. Price
Steve McLaughlin
Ariel Resnikoff
Danny Snelson
Michelle Taransky
Orchid Tierney
Jess Shollenberger
Ann Vickery

Technical Director
Chris Martin

Technical Advisor
Zach Carduner
Chris Mustazza

Editorial Assistants
Madeline Chun
Wahid Sarwar
Lucas Schrier

Founding Editor
John Tranter

Recently in Jacket2

Raw from the bellicose tumble (PoemTalk #203)

Callie Gardner, "Culture Warrior"

PoemTalk

From left: Laynie Browne, Julia Bloch, Iain Morrison

Julia Bloch, Laynie Browne, and Iain Morrison joined Al Filreis in KWH’s Wexler Studio to talk about a poem — or rather two versions of a poem — by the late Callie Gardner. One version, titled “when will my love return from the culture war?,” is 6-quatrains long. A second, for which we have a recorded performance, is four quatrains; there’s a variation on the second that seems to invite us to call it a sonnet. Callie added a version — organized in the quatrains — to their blog on May 1, 2020. On November 19, 2020, Callie read the shorter version of the poem as part of a live-streamed reading given by eight poets. Callie was the fifth to read. We link the YouTube recording HERE, and PoemTalk listeners are invited to watch and listen to our poem at 53 minutes into the group reading.

December 24, 2024

Launch for The Kinds of Poetry I Want: Essays & Comedies

with Tracie Morris, Christian Bök, Tan Lin, Felix Bernstein, & Charles Bernstein

Charles Bernstein

at Giorno Poetry Systems in New York, Dec. 5, 2024

My thanks to Alan Thomas and Randy Petelos at the University of Chicago Press. This is my tenth book with Chicago, going back 25 years. Thanks also to Anthony Huberman and Eli Coplan (sound engineer) of GPS for hosting this event.

Cry me a makar

On translating Lorca into Shaetlan

Christie Williamson

“Only if you want to, and it might not work, but do you think you could translate some of the poems into Shetlandic?” I’d been writing poems fairly consistently in Shaetlan for two or three years by this point, but my primary creative outlet remained theatre. Still, it was too good an idea not to pursue. I knew Shaetlan and knew how to write a decent poem in it. The García Lorca poems whose English translations we’d been giving voice to were extraordinary so, why not? What could possibly go wrong?

“I’ve got a suggestion for you. Can I buy you a glass of wine?” The answer to that question is always yes. We were in rehearsal for Lorca’s Shadow, a devised theatre piece by Moving Parts Theatre Company, and this suggestion from Corinne Harris, the play’s director, was to change the course of my life.

December 5, 2024