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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Jay Jeff Jones, RIP
Playwright, Essayist, Critic, and Such a Fine and True Poet

May 22, 2023 by Jan Herman 4 Comments

He died Saturday, May 20, 2023. He was 77. After theater studies and acting with The Mime Troupe in San Francisco, he moved to England, where he mostly lived since. In London he worked for Transatlantic Review, the British Drama League, and Running Man Press — and later edited the quarterly New Yorkshire Writing and co-curated (with Douglas Field) the exhibition “OffBeat: Jeff Nuttall and the International Underground” at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, which drew 130,000 visitors. He published poetry, essays, reviews, and fiction in many magazines and anthologies. His poem “Passion” was recently published by Cold Turkey Press in a folio entitled Silenian Odes. His 1970s-era play about Jim Morrison, “The Lizzard King,” was published as a chapbook in 2021. The Wind Pours By Like Destiny, his uncommonly rich meditation on the poets Sylvia Plath and Asa Benveniste and, as the subtitle puts it, “the poetic afterlife,” was published as a chapbook in 2022. And here at Straight Up, the staff was proud to post much by and about him. You can seek it here.

He took this photo of the moors behind his home in a village near Manchester.

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Filed Under: Art, books, Literature, main, News, political culture

Comments

  1. William Cody Maher says

    May 22, 2023 at 3:39 pm

    Damn Jan! And I had just read a poem of his Gerard sent me and really liked it and wanted to read more and wanted to ask you about him and now I hear this! I hope he was looking in the direction of that photo when he left!

    Reply
  2. Jan Herman says

    May 22, 2023 at 4:34 pm

    cody — he was also a mensch to the max. v. good to hear from you. sad that this brought such shitty news.

    Reply
  3. Ruth Cain says

    May 27, 2023 at 7:53 pm

    I only just got to know Jay through his essay on Plath. I was lucky enough to meet him last year and his loss hits so hard. A wonderful and deeply thoughtful writer and person. I won’t see his like again.

    Reply
  4. Jan Herman says

    May 28, 2023 at 2:19 pm

    thnx, ruth. he told me he how fascinating it was to meet you.

    Reply

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Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
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The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

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