Jack Grapes

Jack Grapes is a poet, playwright, publisher, actor and teacher. Over the last 40 years, he has taught thousands of poets & writers using his book Method Writing: The Craft of the Invisible Form. He has also taught in over 100 Los Angeles schools as part of the Poets in the Schools program, and has published dozens of chapbooks featuring their work. With Bill Cakmis, he co-wrote and starred in an award-winning play, Circle of Will, a metaphysical comedy about the lost years of William Shakespeare, which won several theater critics awards for Best Comedy and Best Performance by an Actor. The play was also produced as a musical. He also co-authored with Allan Yasnyi a musical How Much Can a Grecian Urn. He was the editor and publisher of the literary journal ONTHEBUS, which ran from 1989 to 2017 and included the work of thousands of poets and writers from Los Angeles and throughout the U.S. and poets in translation from around the world. Through Bombshelter Press, he has published over 100 books by California poets. He is the author of numerous books of poetry and non-fiction, including Method Writing, Advanced Method Writing, and How to Read Like a Writer. Forthcoming in 2018 are two works of non-fiction: The Tender Agonies of Charles Bukowski, a book of essays, and Etherized Upon A Table, a two-volume "History of Modern Poetries from Homer to the present." A spoken word CD, Pretend, was produced by Poetry East, and a new spoken-word CD, The Man in Charge of Watering, is due later in 2018 produced by Bill Ratner. Books currently available on Amazon are The Naked Eye: New & Selected Poems, 1987-2012 (2013), Poems So Far So Far So Good So Far To Go (2014), All the Sad Angels (2015), and Wide Road to the Edge of the World (2016). A new book of poems is forthcoming later in the year, Any Style. Due for publication by Chatwin Books, edited by Phil Bevis, will be Jack's two-volume Collected Poems, The Last of the Outsiders. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Lori and their cat, Charles Aznavour, affectionately known as Chuck.