Jason Shinder (1955–2008) was an American poet who authored three books and founded the YMCA National Writer's Voice.[1] His last book, Stupid Hope (Graywolf Press, 2009), was released posthumously.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1955 and graduated from Skidmore College in 1978.[2] He published his first literary work in 1993, with the release of Every Room We Ever Slept In, which became a New York Public Library Notable Book.[3] He went on to author Among Women and Uncertain Hours. He also edited numerous anthologies, including The Poem That Changed America: "Howl" Fifty Years Later (2006) and The Poem I Turn To: Actors and Directors Present Poetry That Inspires Them (2008).[3] In addition to founding and directing the National Writer's Voice, Shinder also served as director of the Sundance Institute Writing Program, as a teacher in the graduate writing program at Bennington College, and as a graduate teacher at New School University. He was also a Poet Laureate of Provincetown.[2][3] Shinder earned a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2007.[3][4]
Shinder died in April 2008. He had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia. "Cancer is a tremendous opportunity," he said, philosophically, "to have your face pressed right up against the glass of your mortality." In his brief poem "Company," he writes:
I've been avoiding my illness
because I'm afraid
I will die and when I do,
I'll end up alone again.[5]