Welcome!

Thank you for visiting this site. Please feel free to reach out any time using the email link at the bottom of this page or clicking here.

I’m excited to share my first poetry collection Keep/Discard with you. The recipient of four Pushcart Poetry Prize nominations, my work has been anthologized and widely published in peer-reviewed journals. What inspires my writing is the world around me in the Pinelands of South Jersey, close to the Jersey Shore, with my husband Alan, a woodworker, and our pet cockatoo Boris. Alan helps me with my grammar and I offer him artistic advice on his latest project. I’m fortunate to host the Leap Street Poets Workshop with my poetry-loving friends and grateful for their support.

National Poetry Month’s Annual Community of Poets Reading

Overview:
Every year poets from Southern New Jersey gather together to share one poem written by someone else that they love and one of their poems. Please join me and other poets and poetry-loving friends in celebrating National Poetry Month.

When:
April 30, 2026 at 12:30 pm

Where:
Atlantic Cape Community College
Building D in the Library’s Art Gallery accessible by elevator
5100 Black Horse Pike
Mays Landing, NJ

No registration is necessary.

My daily visit to announce lunch time in Alan’s woodworking studio.

My poetry muse and Leap Street Poets mascot, Boris the cockatoo.

Meet my Leap Street Poetry Family! From left front Ben Hyland, Cole Eubanks and Shelley Cohen. From right front me, Deborah Bayer and our “Poetry Mom” Barbara Daniels.

*****************************************************

Need to “taste test” my poetry? Visit jacalynshelley.com/poems

To buy Keep/Discard, visit jacalynshelley.com/shop

Thank you for reading!

Send me an email: click here