Isaac Jarnot


Isaac Jarnot is an American poet. He was born in Buffalo, New York and studied literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In 1994 he received an MFA in creative writing from Brown University. He has lived in San Francisco, Boulder, Providence, and London. Since the mid-1990s he has been a resident of New York City. He has taught creative writing and literature at Brooklyn College, Long Island University, Naropa University, and the Poetry Project in New York City.

Writing

Jarnot has edited two poetry journals as well as The Poetry Project Newsletter and An Anthology of New Poetry. He is the author of four full-length collections of poetry: Some Other Kind of Mission, Ring of Fire, Black Dog Songs and Night Scenes. His biography of the San Francisco poet Robert Duncan was published in August 2012 and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Non-Fiction, and received Honorable Mention in Literature from American Publishers Awards program. Joie De Vivre: Selected Poems: 1992-2012 was published by City Lights in May 2013. His work has been published in numerous anthologies including Poetry 180 edited by Billy Collins, Great American Prose Poems edited by David Lehman, and the Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry, 2013.
Regarding Jarnot's Book The Ring of Fire Patrick Pritchett writes, "This is where the human stands before itself as the sign of everything that can be transfigured – in other words, as the site of poetic possibility."
He works as a freelance writer and teacher and lives in Jackson Heights, Queens. He is a graduate of New York Theological Seminary and is a minister at Safe Haven United Church of Christ in Ridgewood, Queens.

Awards and honors