51福利社

Jessica Lakritz鈥檚 dream is to live without manmade clocks. So far, it has been successful intermittently, and she has been able to work online in mainly freelance writing, tutoring, and editing for the past three years. Since graduating from Eastern in 2010, Jessica has lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Portland, Oregon, Zihuatanejo, Mexico, Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and is currently residing in Barcelona, Spain. This lifestyle has allowed her to focus on new ways to develop her passion for writing.

Her first poetry collection聽You Had Me At Topography was published thanks to a successful聽聽campaign. It is a story in poems whose structure is inspired by Julio Cortazar鈥檚 novel聽贬辞辫蝉肠辞迟肠丑.听Instead of just reading the collection from front to back, there is another reading offered. At the end of each poem are instructions telling which poem to read next. The idea of this dual structure is that, depending on which way you read the book, a different story will emerge.聽While the campaign is still running, she is now hoping to expand the project to include a custom soundtrack for the book, a goal that plays into her master plan to convert more of the population into poetry lovers.

In concordance with that plan, Jessica started a multimedia project called聽Sex on Sundaze, in which she writes her poems on people鈥檚 bodies, often in a manner intending to invoke a sensual and/or sexual response. The poems are inspired by the models on which they are written; the purpose of this is to connect the art with the process, the internal experience of the words with the external representation of it. The project as a whole is meant to bridge the obvious gap between poetry and the mainstream, as she feels that the positive effects of poetry on the human psyche are important and should be enjoyed by a much wider audience. It has progressed to address issues like body image, slut-shaming, and the spiritual crisis that seems to have plagued the globe as a result of overexposure to violence, porn, and the deceptive nature of 鈥渞eality鈥� television. Needless to say, sex sells, and the point is to get poetry out there and to dissolve the notion that poetry is art for intellectuals only. The project has generated interest from various venues, including interviews from Barcelona鈥檚 English radio station, The Grid, Seattle-based writing website,听, and the 51福利社 MFA program鈥檚 literary blog,听Bark, as well as web shout-outs from聽听补苍诲听.

Over the years she has been published in聽Cream City Review,听Grist,听Slate,听Five Quarterly, and聽Third Coast, among others. Some of her recent publications also include:

• Tangerine Bones 鈥撀�Switchback
• 础耻迟辞蝉耻驳驳别蝉迟颈辞苍听鈥�聽First Class Lit