Jane Mead

Jane Mead (August 13, 1958 – September 8, 2019) was an American poet and the author of five poetry collections. Her last volume was To the Wren: Collected & New Poems 1991-2019 (Alice James Books, 2019). Her honors included fellowships from the Lannan and Guggenheim foundations and a Whiting Award. Her poems appeared in literary journals and magazines including Ploughshares,^[1] Electronic Poetry Review, The American Poetry Review, The New York Times, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Antioch Review and in anthologies including The Best American Poetry 1990.^[2]

Born in Baltimore, Mead 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.

After her father died in 2003, Mead managed the family ranch in Napa County, Northern California. She taught at New England College^[3] and co-owned Prairie Lights in Iowa City, Iowa.

Mead died September 8, 2019, in Napa, from cancer.^[4]