Jim Cohn is a

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

activist, and spoken word artist in the United States. He was born in Highland Park, Illinois, in 1953. Early poetics and musical influences include Bob Dylan, the subject of a now lost audiotaped for a class project completed in his senior year at Shaker Heights High School, where he also co-captained the varsity football team. He received a BA from the

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sys ...

in English (1976) and a Certificate of Poetics (1980) from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University where he was a teaching assistant to

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

. He received his M.S. Ed. in English and Deaf Education from the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

and the

National Technical Institute for the Deaf The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) is the first and largest technological college in the world for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. As one of nine colleges within the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester ...

(NTID) in 1986. For over two decades, he worked in the field of disability services, taking a siddha approach as a model of Disability Services and Studies practice and scholarship. He believed that the social sciences should be redefined thematically within the United States into a form of American Karmic Studies.

Career

In 1980, Jim Cohn published his first collection of poems, ''Green Sky.'' In 1989 ''Prairie Falcon'' was published by North Atlantic Books. He would follow up this work with five more books of poetry and two works of poetics nonfiction. He introduced Allen Ginsberg to Deaf poets at NTID in 1984. In 1986, he published a groundbreaking essay entitled "The New Deaf Poetics: Visible Poetry" in ''Sign Language Studies'' (52). In 1987, he coordinated the first National Deaf Poetry Conference, in Rochester, NY. The importance of his role in the history of American Sign Language (ASL) poetics was documented in a 2009 film by Miriam Nathan Lerner entitled ''The Heart of the Hydrogen Jukebox''. In 1990, he began serving as editor to annual poetry magazine, ''Napalm Health Spa''. In 2009, ''Napalm Health Spa'' enjoyed its twentieth year of continuous publication. In 2013, released an anthologic special edition of Napalm Health Spa entitled Long Poem Masterpieces of the Postbeats. His entry was "Treasures For Heaven" Upon release of NHS13, poet David Cope suggested that Long Poem Masterpieces of the Postbeats is akin to Donald Allen's New American Poetry (Grove Press, 1960) in its scope and variety." In 1995, Jim began his recording career with The Abolitionists, a North Bay Area band that featured Mooka Rennick and guitarist Steve Kimock. He began a solo recording artist career beginning with ''Unspoken Words'' in 1998. From 2006-2008, he worked on ''homage'', a spoken word and music recording made upon the death of his mother. In 2009, he released ''Impermanence'', a double CD compilation. In 1996, Jim began planning for an online poetry project that would explore

Beat Generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...

influences on the Postbeat Poets. In 1997, Jim founded the on-line Museum of American Poetics. In 1999, MAP became the first online poetry site to be mentioned in the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

. Jim published his first collection of prose that same year, exploring the theoretical parallels between ASL and modernist poetries in a book entitled ''Sign Mind: Studies in American Sign Language Poetics''. Jim's first video production, the ''American Poet Greats'' series, won the Best Multimedia Award from Community Television in Boulder, Colorado for three year in a row (2001-2003). In 2003, Jim produced his first film, a 55 minute profile on the life and poetic contributions of the

Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics is a school of Naropa University, located in Boulder, Colorado, United States. It was founded in 1974 by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, as part of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s 100-year experim ...

co-founder

Anne Waldman Anne Waldman (born April 2, 1945) is an American poet. Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political activ ...

, entitled ''Anne Waldman: Makeup on Empty Space''. In a 2011 review of Cohn's ''Sutras & Bardos: Essays & Interviews on Allen Ginsberg, the Kerouac School, Anne Waldman, The Postbeat Poets & the New Demotics'', Beat Studies scholar

Jonah Raskin Jonah Raskin (born January 3, 1942) is an American writer who left an East Coast university teaching position to participate in the 1970s radical counterculture as a freelance journalist, then returned to the academy in California in the 1980s to ...

wrote "Perhaps no one in the United States today understands and appreciates the poetic durability and the cultural elasticity of the Beats better than Jim Cohn."

Bibliography

* ''Treasures for Heaven: Collected Poems 1976-2021'', 2022, Giant Steps Press * ''If 45 was 16 & 16 was 45'', 2020, Museum of American Poetics Publications (Chapbook) * ''Birthday News: A Poemoscope'', 2018, Museum of American Poetics Publications * ''The Ongoing Saga I Told My Daughter: Expanded Edition, 2016, Museum of American Poetics Publications * ''The Groundless Ground'', 2014, Museum of American Poetics Publications * ''Sutras & Bardos: Essays & Interviews on Allen Ginsberg, The Kerouac School, Anne Waldman, Postbeat Poets & The New Demotics'', 2011, Museum of American Poetics Publications * ''Mantra Winds'', 2010, Museum of American Poetics Publications * ''The Ongoing Saga I Told My Daughter'' (original edition), 2009, Museum of American Poetics Publications * ''Quien Sabe Mountain'', 2004, Museum of American Poetics Publications * ''The Golden Body: Meditations on the Essence of Disability'', 2003, Museum of American Poetics Publications * ''Sign Mind: Studies in American Sign Language Poetics'', 1999, Museum of American Poetics Publications * ''The Dance of Yellow Lightning Over The Ridge'', 1998, Writers & Books Publications * ''Grasslands'', 1994, Writers & Books Publications * ''Prairie Falcon'', 1989, North Atlantic Books * ''Green Sky'', 1980

Discography

* ''Venerable Madtown Hall'' 2013, MusEx Records * ''Commune'' 2013, MusEx Records * ''Impermanence'' 2008, MusEx Records * ''homage'' 2007, MusEx Records * ''Trashtalking Country'' 2006, MusEx Records * ''Emergency Juke Joint'' 2002, MusEx Records * ''Antenna'' 2000, MusEx Records * ''Unspoken Words'' 1998, MusEx Records * ''Walking Thru Hell Gazing at Flowers'' 1996, MusEx Records * ''The Road'' 1995, MusEx Records

External links

Official Site

Museum of American Poetics

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20100417005829/http://www.illiteratemagazine.com/featured/21 Interview with Rob Geisen, ''Illiterate Magazine''
Review of ''Sutras & Bardos: Essays & Interviews on Allen Ginsberg, the Kerouac School, Anne Waldman, The Postbeat Poets & the New Demotics'' by Jonah Raskin

*

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohn, Jim American spoken word poets American male poets Living people People from Highland Park, Illinois 1953 births University of Colorado alumni University of Rochester alumni Writers from Shaker Heights, Ohio