Jen Jabaily-Blackburn
LightNews LightNews
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Jen Jabaily-Blackburn
@jenjblackburn.bsky.social
580 followers 1.2K following 140 posts
poet, author of Girl in a Bear Suit (Elixir Press 2024) and Disambiguation (Salamander/Suffolk U 2024). Program and Outreach Coordinator at Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College #binders
Posts Replies Media Videos
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Digital friends, I’d love to meet you at #AWP2025! This is a rare chance to pick up Girl in a Bear Suit if you’ve been considering it, or just please come say hi!
Green and pink infographic for Jen Jabaily-Blackburn’s AWP whereabouts with images of berries, honeycomb, and the cover of girl in a bear suit (rear view of a woman looking at a strange surreal wilderness in greens and pinks, with moths and plants, painting by Michael McGrath) Thursday, 3/27, 11:00 AM Bookfair Book Signing @yetzirahpoets (T715) Thursday, 3/27, 7:00 PM (doors 6:30) Reading at “Off Site. On Purpose.” MG Studio, 1319 W. 11th St., Los Angeles, CA 90015 (group reading with some lovely presses/mags, including Perugia!) Friday, 3/28, 10:00 AM Bookfair Book Signing @perugiapress (T510) Infographic for Off Site On purpose with blocks of color. Info for reading time/date/venue: Thursday, 3/27, 7:00 PM (doors 6:30) Reading at “Off Site. On Purpose.” MG Studio, 1319 W. 11th St., Los Angeles, CA 90015 (group reading with some lovely presses/mags, including Perugia!)
March 27, 2025 at 2:20 PM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
But we know what happens next.
A still from The Substance. A woman with dark hair and light skin in a yellow coat faces a row of white lockers in a white and gray room with no other furnishings and severe lighting.
March 19, 2025 at 6:36 PM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Find me @ #AWP25:

3/27, 11:00 AM Book Signing @yetzirahpoets (T715)

3/27, 7:00 PM (doors 6:30) Reading at “Off Site. On Purpose.” MG Studio, 1319 W. 11th St., Los Angeles, CA 90015 (group reading with lovely presses/mags, including Perugia!)

3/28, 10:00 AM Book Signing @perugiapress (T510)
Green and pink poster with awp25 info listed in post. Labeled girl in a bear suit in a girl suit @ awp2025 wildlife sightings. Poster has botanical and natural detail with blackberries and honey comb and an image of the book’s cover.
March 15, 2025 at 11:39 AM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Today! Don’t buy what you don’t have to.
February 28, 2025 at 1:47 PM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Have you ever seen Pamela Carvalho’s fruit tattoos? Maybe the moon really is secretly a blood orange is all—
Two surreal fruit tattoos on light skinned forearms. At left is a lemon rising like a sun over some hills; at right is a moon being peeled to reveal it is a blood orange.
February 21, 2025 at 7:25 PM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Always thinking of this @sjane.bsky.social poem!
Joy would crawl over broken glass, if that was the way
February 3, 2025 at 2:26 AM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
OH NO
Ben Wyatt from Parks & Rec holding a little doll saying “do you think a depressed person could make this”
January 30, 2025 at 4:30 AM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Picture of fictional rock band Natalie is Freezing playing at fictional Greendale Community College.
January 27, 2025 at 2:04 AM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Loving my daughter’s book arts experiments: “Taylor Swift Cakes.”
Child in pink coat holding a handmade accordion style book Child in pink coat holding a handmade accordion style book
January 24, 2025 at 7:55 PM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Girl in a Bear Suit isn’t quite a year old, but it’s been a weird year for a book with no distribution. So grateful for those who’ve ordered copies from me, told friends, shared with students have taken time to review it, & to indie sellers & libraries. If you’d like your own, please DM for details!
January 23, 2025 at 4:44 PM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Yesterday was a cruddy day overall, *but* it was the best surprise to open my inbox and have a line from my own poem looking back at me. Thanks, @commonmag.bsky.social!
Image of original poster’s inbox with email from The Common magazine. The subject line is “I have, I’m told, an archaeologist’s soul”, a line from the OP’s poem “Archaological, Atlantic.”
January 15, 2025 at 2:46 PM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Happy to have some new pieces in @commonmag.bsky.social, “Archaeological, Atlantic” and “Velvel.” Pic of the potato throwing sisters here (my grandma is the hot one, 3rd from left.)

www.thecommononline.org/december-24-...
December 13, 2024 at 2:41 AM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Would you like a copy of Girl in a Bear Suit? It had an unlucky start w/SPD’s collapse, but been doing my best to get it to folks. $22 w/shipping, $17 WMass local pickup. I have a few set aside to donate to teachers & libraries. Email is jenjblackburn at gmail dot com. Venmo @jenjblackburn. Thanks!
Cover of Girl in a bear suit green and pink a figure in a dress a skull on the ground hands shooting green fire Photo of salmon swimming away from a brown bear A collage with a large brown bear with a feathered hat and text what a sex queen in the wilds should wear Text of poem Callisto disambiguation Callisto may refer to a dead moon or a girl in a bear suit. Girl in a bear suit may refer to itself & its reverse, a recursion of bears & girls trading wardrobes. Or is itself a dead moon. Dead moon may refer to goth makeup that never suited but wore anyway to show I meant business. I did not mean business but loved to stress my most terrible features: eyes, lips, sharp as snakes. Apparently a cruise is the least stressful form of vacation if the sample is restricted to those likely to go on cruises. If there is water on Callisto & she is not actually dead, there is no possibility of a cruise; the water, if present may, in fact, be a nest.
December 12, 2024 at 2:37 PM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
At present, it is probably this, which (ironically?) my daughter, 8, always demands I read.

salamandermag.org/wp-content/u...
Mommy Hotel Mommy hotel is a hotel, not a motel but it may look like one. It is right next to the sea. It is not an Express. It is not a by Marriott. There are no beeping breakfast machines in the lobby. There is no lobby. Mommies do not have to pay for Mommy hotel; it is paid in full by a Cool Aunt energy foundation. No one needs to apply. It’s basically a MacArthur for mommies where someone puts your name in, then one day in the future you get a call saying “Hey girl, it’s Mommy Hotel! Welcome!” The selection process is opaque but the one thing you know is you do not have to be good. It says as much right on your mug. Once a day your loved ones drive by in red parade cars, waving. They never say “miss you;” no, it’s always a sunny “See you soon!” The staff is so well paid by Big Cool Aunt. The mommies all say thank you for everything, every time, but neatly in a way that considers the recipient’s feelings. There’s an office with everything you need. Your projects can go in a cupboard by the door. Someone will launder your “also no” tote bag. Go ahead, sneeze; you can pee on anything. You can ask for a shiny puce loaner liver at the desk like you might a toothbrush. There’s the sea right there, but no pressure. If you want to just watch it to an erratic party of windchimes, ok. You can go in if you want, but do whatever.
November 23, 2024 at 7:31 PM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
I am a smart person but also I have a balance of negative fucks for pedantry— Paisley Rekdal killing it per uszh
November 21, 2024 at 2:24 AM
jenjblackburn.bsky.social
Hey, looking forward to connecting with folks here— I’m a poet whose debut book was released this year (Girl in a Bear Suit). I also have a recent e-chapbook from Salamander (Disambiguation), and I make mixed media collage poems. Here for poetry, art, and trivia folks mostly!
A mixed media collaged work in blues and greens with a large image of a winter coat, tree and bird, with the text calamity descended on us and said let us see the contents A mixed media collaged work in blue pink and red and with a large image of a gilded head, animals, and canopy bed, with the text miss me with your earthly things your glory this and spoils that Image of book Girl in a Bear suit at Book Moon Books. Cover is pink and green with a girl in a dress with her back facing us and a skull on the ground with a large moth creature in the sky Cover of Disambiguation featuring a blue, white and red image of a bear paw, a moth and the ocean
November 18, 2024 at 10:23 PM