Jean Donnelly
Encyclopedia
Life
Jean Donnelly studied poetry at the creative writing program at George Mason UniversityGeorge Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
, where she co-founded the journal So To Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language & Art.
Her work appeared in Big Allis, Fence, The Germ, Lingo, Situation, and Volt.
She has co-curated the In Your Ear reading series at the District of Columbia Arts Center, and has taught poetry at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
.
She lives in Washington, D. C., with her husband, Arthur Linde, and sons Alex, Jack, and Naish.
Works
(chapbook)
Reviews
Jean Donnelly’s debut volume, Anthem, presents an unusually cohesive, finely conceived examination of contemporary American life from the perspective of an innovative, community-minded poet. The poet is also a mother — a fact most often relegated to bio-note relevance but which in this case is actually central to the poetry itself. Each piece in Anthem — the book consists of two long poems (the 26-part ‘Legend’ and the 50-part ‘Anthem’) and two prose series (‘A Bonnet Gospel’ and ‘Ballad’) — emerges as a distinct, sustained, and successful exploration of community, family, political engagement, and the possibilities of language, particularly the lyric poem.