Jane Joritz-Nakagawa

Her work is archived in the University of Chicago library's special collection of poetry from Japan. Her work has been linked to ecopoetics, feminism, and she has a long-standing interest in disability poetics.

• Name — Jane Joritz-Nakagawa • Born — November 1, 1960 • Birthplace — Harvey, Illinois • Occupation — Poet, Essayist • Period — Contemporary • Genre — Poetry

Jane Joritz was born in Harvey, Illinois in 1960. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing (poetry specialization) from Columbia College (Chicago) and completed her Masters of Arts degree in linguistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1989, she moved to Japan, and in 1990, married Japanese urologist Junichirō Nakagawa. She worked as associate professor at a national teacher training university, Aichi University of Education, until the spring of 2012, where she taught courses in American and British poetry, comparative poetry, gender studies, American history and pedagogy. Currently she is a freelance writer and educator living in Shizuoka Prefecture and Nagano Prefecture. A vegan and an advocate of women's and animal rights, she has stated "Activism runs through what I read and what I write and what I'm teaching." Her tenth full-length collection, Plan B Audio, which includes photography by Susan Laura Sullivan, addresses cancer, the female body and other subjects; her treatment of these issues is discussed in reviews of this work in Tears in the Fence, The Long Poem Magazine, and Wordgathering.