Jill Bialosky

Biography

Jill Bialosky is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Mock Heart: New & Selected Poems (Knopf, 2026). Her collection, Asylum (Knopf, 2020), was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. She is the author of numerous novels, including The Deceptions (Counterpoint, 2022) and three works of nonfiction. She is an executive editor at W. W. Norton & Company.

See Work

POETRY / Summer 2020

Like a Flock of Dispossessed

By Jill Bialosky

Like a flock of dispossessed 
in a city of converts, we found our way 
to the Shamrock where the bikers 
congregated to play pool. 

POETRY / Summer 2020

Why I Thought

By Jill Bialosky

Why I thought I needed to rent a third-floor attic.
Why I thought one mattress on the floor, a desk, a vanity

POETRY / Summer 2020

I Was Washing Dishes

By Jill Bialosky

I was washing dishes in the sink. 
My hands were wet. The baby was crying. 

POETRY / Summer 2020

& in the Mornings

By Jill Bialosky

& in the mornings sometimes awoke so cold
—the wind in Iowa City was brutal—
those days of doubt, those days of troubled land,
that I did not want to get out of bed &

POETRY / Summer 2020

What Are Words

By Jill Bialosky

What are words when they meet the action 
of what they attempt to modify?

POETRY / Summer 2020

In Iowa City

By Jill Bialosky

In Iowa City, the restaurant 
where I worked on the weekend, 
I befriended another waitress, blond & blue-eyed, 

POETRY / Summer 2020

When He Was Small

By Jill Bialosky

When he was small,
I rented a little studio 
in a building on Ninety-Fifth Street so I could have a room 
of my own to write. The studio was the size of a bathroom.

POETRY / Summer 2020

If Someone Was Kind Enough

By Jill Bialosky

If someone was kind enough to take us driving out to the long roads
that veered away from cornfields to the farms, pig roasts & parties 

POETRY / Summer 2014

The Hotdog

By Jill Bialosky

Watch him flip
them the bird
after the ball

POETRY / Summer 2014

The Pillage

By Jill Bialosky

Time passes
into the limbs of the boys
on the field stretching