Jean Day is a poet, academic editor, and (now retired) union activist whose involvement in the San Francisco Bay Area poetry scene spans more than four decades. Her new book The Elements will be released in November 2026 and can be pre-ordered now from Winter Editions. Included (among other poems) in The Elements are slightly different iterations of the two poems published as Apicality, a 2024 limited edition from Nion Editions. (Each of the 125 copies of that book included a unique pencil drawing by the author, scans of which are viewable here.)

Other books include The Night Before the Day on Which (Roof Books, 2022), Late Human (Ugly Duckling, 2021), The Triumph of Life (Insurance Editions, 2018), Daydream (Litmus, 2017), and many others.

In addition to writing, Day has had a lifelong interest in and intermittent practice of making things by hand, including drawings, wood carvings (mostly spoons), and clay objects.

She lives in Berkeley, California.

Photo: Alan Bernheimer