Jennifer Moxley was born in San Diego, California in 1964. At eighteen she worked as an au pair in France for a year, after which she returned to California and studied for three years at UC San Diego. In 1989 she moved with scholar and critic Steve Evans to Providence, Rhode Island, where she eventually completed her B.A. at the University of Rhode Island and then went on to earn an M.F.A. from Brown University in 1994. From 1992-1995 Moxley edited The Impercipient, a stapled and photocopied magazine dedicated to publishing the work of her contemporaries. Following this venture she co-edited, with Evans, the Impercipient Lecture Series, a monthly poetics pamphlet. She and Evans left Providence in February 1998 for Paris. In the summer of 1999, they returned to the States and settled in Maine.
Moxley is the author of Clampdown (Flood, 2009), The Middle Room (Subpress, 2008), The Line (Post-Apollo, 2007), Often Capital (Flood, 2005), The Sense Record and other poems (Edge, 2002; rpt. Salt, 2003), and Imagination Verses (Tender Buttons, 1996; rpt. Salt, 2003).
Her chapbooks include Coastal (The Song Cave, 2011); Fragments of a Broken Poetics (Impercipient Editions, 2006); Enlightenment Evidence (Cambridge, UK: Rem•press, 1996), which was translated into French as Evidence des Lumières at the Fondation Royaumont in 1998; and Wrong Life (Cambridge, UK: Equipage, 1999).
She has translated two books by the French poet and scholar Jacqueline Risset: a book of essays titled Sleep’s Powers (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2008), and a book of poems, The Translation Begins (Burning Deck, 1996). In 2010, her translation of Anne Portugal's Absolute bob was published by Burning Deck. Her poem “Behind the Orbits” was chosen by Robert Creeley for inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2002. She was the poetry editor for The Baffler magazine from 1997-2010 and a contributing editor of The Poker magazine from 2003-2008.
Moxley teaches poetry and poetics at the University of Maine.
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Books | Chapbooks | Translations | Editing | Essays & Personal Narratives | Anthologies | Online Poems | Reviews of Moxley's work | Readings
Clampdown | Chicago: Flood, 2009
The Middle Room | Berkeley: Subpress, 2007
The Line | Sausolito: Post-Apollo, 2007
Often Capital | Chicago: Flood Editions, 2005
The Sense Record | Washington, DC: Edge Books, 2002 | Rpt. Cambridge, UK & Australia: Salt Publishing, 2003
Imagination Verses | New York: Tender Buttons, 1996 | Rpt. Cambridge, UK & Australia: Salt Publishing 2003
Evidence des Lumières | Trans. of Enlightenment Evidence (see below) | Grâne, France: Editions Créaphis, 1998
Coastal | Amherst: The Song Cave, 2011
Fragments of a Broken Poetics | Orono: Impercipient Editions, 2006
The Occasion | New York City, NY: Belladonna, 2002
Wrong Life | Cambridge, England: Equipage, 1999
Enlightenment Evidence | Cambridge, England: Rempress, 1996
Ten Still Petals | Providence: private, 1996
The First Division of Labour | Boston: Rosetta Chapbook, 1995
Absolute bob | Providence: Burning Deck, 2010 | Trans. of Définitif bob by Anne Portugal | Paris: P.O.L., 2002
Sleep's Powers | Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling, 2008 | Trans. of Puissances du Sommeil by Jacqueline Risset | Paris: Seuil, 1997
The Translation Begins | Providence: Burning Deck, 1996 | Trans. of La Traduction Commence by Jacqueline Risset | Paris: Christian Bourgeois, 1971
On-line archive of The Impercipient at Arras (with introductory note)
Coeditor of The Impercipient Lecture Series | 10 issues in 1997
Contributing editor of The Poker from 2003 to 2008
Poetry editor of The Baffler from 1997 to 2010
A Personal Reminiscence Chronicling the First Documented Case of the Waldrop Effect | Composed for the fortieth-anniversary of Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop's Burning Deck Press
After Language Poetry | Originally published in the Swedish magazine OEI | 2002
Pillow Talk: A Short History of a Small Magazine | on The Impercipient | 2002
To Whom It May Concern: A Letter about Content | Originally published in Open Letter | 2001
Invective Verse | Originally published in Writing from the New Coast: Technique | 1993
American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New Poetry | New York: Norton, 2009
Vanishing Points | New Modernist Poems | Edited by Rod Mengham and John Kinsella | Salt, 2004
Isnt It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger American Poets | Edited by Brett Fletcher Lauer and Aimee Kelley | Verse, 2004
The Best American Poetry 2002 | Edited by Robert Creeley
The Mechanics of the Mirage: Postwar American Poetry | Edited by Michel Delville and Christine Pagnoulle | Université de Liège: 2000 | Click here for a review
An Anthology of New (American) Poets | Edited by Lisa Jarnot, Christopher Stroffolino, and Leonard Schwartz | Talisman House, 1998
Moments Without Vision and In Medias Res | Brooklyn Rail June 2011
Lullaby | Iowa Review & Poetry Daily 2010
Dividend of the Social Opt-Out | Poetry Project April 2010
Three poems | Coconut 5
Aeolian Harp | Jacket 2
Fear of an Empty Life | Jacket 6
Four poems | Jacket 27
Three poems | Octopus 5Reading Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth on the Romantic Circles: Poets on Poets website
Ange Mlinko on Clampdown
Rob Stanton on Clampdown
Carrie Etter on The Line
John Latta on The Line
Ron Silliman on The Line
Kathleen Ossip on The Middle Room
Shanna Compton on The Middle Room
Ron Silliman on Often Capital
Cole Swensen on The Sense Record
Chris Stroffolino & Katy Lederer on Wrong Life
Pete Smith on Wrong Life and other work
John Yau on Imagination Verses
Lucy Sheerman on Imagination Verses
University of Chicago (video) | Brown University | Pomona College | Georgetown University | UMaine | Mills College | Kelly Holt's house in San Francisco | UC Davis | University of Denver | The Poetry Project | POG collective Tucson, Arizona | University of Pennsylvania | USC | Northwest Bookfest in Seattle | UC Berkeley | Johns Hopkins University | The Poetry Center in San Francisco | UC San Diego | U of Illinois at Chicago |
Imagination
Verses |