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's work also appears in numerous US, UK and Canadian
print and online anthologies and journals including
21 Stars Review,
Arsenic Lobster
(including the 2007 print anthology),
Big City Lit,
CLWN WR,
Dirt,
eratio postmodern
poetry, Erato,
failbetter,
Ginosko Literary Journal,
Inscribed: A Magazine for Writers,
Magma,
Night
Train,
O Sweet Flowery Roses,
Poetz.com, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts,
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, (Le) Poisson Rouge, 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.
Jane performs extensively across the United States and further afield - San Francisco to Portland, Boston, Philadelphia, Princeton, Syracuse, Salt Lake City, Canada, Ireland, The Netherlands to name just a few places.
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 Mike Marcellino's Notebook Writer, WBAI, and Rew Starr's *ReW & WhO?*
Jane is a founding editor of Uphook Press, and also host and curator of the occasional interactive poetry and spoken word series Emotional Rescue at The Cornelia Street Cafe in New York City.
"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