Jane Ormerod

Spoken Word /Poetry

Biography

Born on the south coast of England, Jane Ormerod moved from London to New York City in 2004. She originally studied fine art and exhibited widely. Changing to writing, Jane gained a MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

Jane is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Recreational Vehicles on Fire (Three Rooms Press, 2009), the chapbook 11 Films (Modern Metrics/Exot Books, 2008), and the spoken word CD Nashville Invades Manhattan available from CD Baby or iTunes. Jane is also included in the new Hydrogen Jukebox CD,  Brain Ampin', available from CD Baby or Amazon. A new poetry collection will be published by Three Rooms Press in 2012.

brain ampin'

Jane's work also appears, or is forthcoming, in numerous US, UK and Canadian print and online anthologies and journals including The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow, 21 Stars Review, Ambush Review, eratio postmodern poetry, failbetter, Ginosko Literary Journal, Inscribed: A Magazine for Writers, Night Train, O Sweet Flowery Roses, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, Spiny Babbler, Unpleasant Event Schedule, Whatever Literary Journal, Word Riot.

A regular on the New York poetry and spoken word circuit,  readings have included The Knitting Factory, The Bowery Poetry Club, The Inspired Word, The Cornelia Street Cafe, Galapagos Art Space, and The Stone where Jane has taken part in performances and readings of Gertrude Stein's Pink Melon Joy, and the work of Blaise Cendrars and Walt Whitman.

Nashville Invades Manhattan

Jane performs extensively across the United States and further afield - San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Princeton, Syracuse, Amityville, Salt Lake City, Canada, Ireland, Britain, The Netherlands to name just a few places. 2011 events include the Knitting Factory Brooklyn, "On the Bias" presented by the WNBA at the Jefferson Market Library in NYC, The Inspired Word, Beyond Baroque in Los Angeles, Nashville, Woodstock, The Williams Carlos Williams Center in Rutherford NJ, and the fabulous, modernist, De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, England. 2012 events include The Inspired Word's Two Year Anniversary Show, and the Poetry Festival Santa Cruz.

The reading of "Raging Bull" was named as one of the "Best of 2009" performances at Cafe Impov's live television shows in Princeton, NJ. Other radio and television appearances include WKCR,  Mike Marcellino's Notebook Writer, WBAI, and Rew Starr's *ReW & WhO?* Online and radio archive interviews include Writer's Sanctuary, Outsider Writers, Her Circle, Hardbop,  and Other Poets.

Jane is a founding editor of Uphook Press, a small press specializing in poets and spoken word artists who love both the ink and the mic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

"Her poems--discontinuous, imagistic, chant-like, wide-ranging in its references, sonically dense--challenge more traditional ways of putting a poem together. She made us sound old-fashioned, more, she made us sound artificial, our tidy methodical artefacts simulacra of reality, instead of the postmodern reality caught and then broadcast like a radio signal from her poems."

Jee Leong Koh, Stories of a Reformed Headhunter

Review of Jane Ormerod's reading at The Cornelia Street Cafe, January 18th 2008