J. Mae Barizo
“It is clear we are in the hands of a highly cultivated, intelligent writer.” - Phillip Lopate
b.
Toronto, ON
Currently
New York City
faculty
The New School
performance
Mark Morris Dance Company, Jay-Z, Pharrell, Beyoncé, Frank Ocean, Hans Zimmer, among others
Born in Toronto, J. Mae Barizo is a poet, essayist and transdisciplinary artist who works at the intersection of poetics, media and performance. She is the author of two books of poetry, Tender Machines (Tupelo Press, 2023) and The Cumulus Effect (Four Way Books, 2015). Becoming Hybrid, her book on transdisciplinary and literary theory is forthcoming in the Poets on Poetry series from University of Michigan Press. Pink Noise, a book of hybrid essays on John Cage and the poetics of sound was a finalist for the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize and the 2023 Megaphone Prize. Her work has been anthologized in books published by Simon and Schuster, W.W. Norton, Atelier Editions and Harvard University Press.
An advocate of transdisciplinary work, she has collaborated with artists such as Salman Rushdie, Mark Morris and the American String Quartet. As a librettist, she is the inaugural recipient of Opera America's IDEA residency, given to artists who have the potential to shape the future of opera. DRIFT, her opera (written with composer Alyssa Weinberg) on motherhood and migration, will be premiered with Opera Saratoga in 2026. ISOLA, a feminist monodrama written with composer Alyssa Weinberg, had its world premiere in 2024 with Long Beach Opera. UNBROKEN, an opera written with Ronald Maurice, was commissioned by and premiered by Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
She is also the recipient of fellowships and awards from the MAP Fund, Bennington College, Mellon Foundation, Critical Minded and Poets House. In 2024 she was an artist resident at Baryshnikov Arts Center. Recent writing appears in The Atlantic, Poetry, Ploughshares, Esquire, Los Angeles Review of Books, Paris Review Daily, Boston Review, BookForum, among others. She is the Chair of Undergraduate Creative Writing Program and on the MFA graduate faculty at The New School. She lives in New York City.
BOOKS
2023
2015
ANTHOLOGIES
2025
Poetry is Not a Luxury
simon & Schuster / atria
2022
John Cage: Art, Life & Zen
Atelier Editions
2021
Four Quartets: Poetry in the Pandemic
Tupelo Press
2018
The Kiss
w.w. Norton & company
2017
Renga for Obama