Jane Mead

Who is Jane Mead?

Jane Mead is an American poet, author of three poetry collections. Her most recent is The Usable Field. Her honors include fellowships from the Lannan and Guggenheim Foundations, and a Whiting Writer's Award. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including Ploughshares, Electronic Poetry Review, The American Poetry Review, The New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly, The Antioch Review, and in anthologies including The Best American Poetry 1990. She lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until she was twelve. Her father taught ichthyology at Harvard University. After Cambridge, she moved around a great deal with her mother and stepfather, who was a journalist, living in New Mexico, London, and Cambridge, England. She graduated from Vassar College and from Syracuse University and the University of Iowa. She taught and was Poet-in-Residence at Wake Forest University. Since the death of her father in 2003, she has managed the family ranch in Northern California. She teaches at New England College and co-owns Prairie Lights in Iowa City, Iowa.