Jennifer Jean

Jennifer Jean was born in Venice, California, and lived in foster care until she was seven. She earned a BA in creative writing from San Francisco State University and an MFA in poetry from Saint Mary’s College. Her poetry collections include The Pacific (2027) and The Fool (2013). Her chapbooks include VOZ (2023) and Object Lesson (2021), the latter of which also has a companion resource titled Object Lesson: A Guide to Writing Poetry. Jean co-wrote and co-translated, along with Iraqi poet Hanaa Ahmad Jabr, a correspondence in Arabic and English poems published in 2026 as Where Do You Live? أين‭ ‬تعيشين؟. She is also the co-translator, along with Wadaq Qais, of Jabr’s solo collection I Drag My Sorrow By His Collar (2026). Jean is the editor of Other Paths for Shahrazad: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Arab Women (2026) and the series editor for Black Ocean Press's Songs for Fairuz: New Arab Women's Poetry. Her work as been recognized by the Mass Cultural Council, DISQUIET, and the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Jean is an organizer for the Her Story Is collective, a faculty member of the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing, and the online senior program manager at the Fine Arts Work Center.