Poet, Professor, Alum Julia Bloch

Campus Celebrity steps away from current Penn students this week to focus on Penn alum, professor, and Associate Director of the Kelly Writers House, Julia Bloch. This semester I had the pleasure of being in her “Art of Editing” course and in between class time we got to speak about her adoration for poetry, language, and the potential influence each has in our lives.

Before coming to Penn for her PhD in English, specializing in 20th century poetry and poetics, Julia Bloch worked nine years as a writer and editor in the California bay area. While in publishing, Julia received her MFA in poetry and new she wanted to continue within the field. She came to Penn specifically to work with Charles Bernstein in the English department. Julia became very involved with the Kelly Writers House (KWH). She was a teaching assistant for Faculty Director Al Filreis, ran a reading series, and worked with the KWH on Jacket2. After her PhD, Julia returned to California for two years but her connection to Penn never faltered. Last summer, she became the Associate Director of the KWH and relocated to the Penn and Philadelphia community.

She is now an editor for Jacket2, the second literary magazine criticizing poetry associated with Jacket magazine, started by John Tranter from Sydney, Australia.

Jacket2 publishes articles, reviews, discussions, podcasts, and interviews commenting on contemporary poetry and poetics. Jacket2 also preserves the full archive of Tranter’s Jacket magazine published between 1997 and 2010, which includes original pieces from poets around the world.

Julia likes that she comes from an “unconventional background” in poetry. She first came to poetry from a poet’s perspective instead of a student’s perspective, which allowed her to view poetry as a “new space” once she reached her PhD program. 

“I love all genres. I love reading all genres and teaching all genres. I don’t write in every single genre, but I do write in a few. I keep coming back to poetry as the genre that consistently teaches us how to question language and I think when you question language you’re able to question everything that surrounds you.”

Poetry, for Julia, stands as a catalyst toward the realization to not take language for granted. “[People are] better able to participate in civic discourse and question authority.” Julia went on to describe how if we as a society take language for granted, the danger of not knowing that we have a right to question authority disappears.

Julia’s fascination with language, identity, and culture cultivates wonderfully in her book Letters to Kelly Clarkson, published back in April 2012. Letters to Kelly Clarkson is a book of poems addressed to Kelly Clarkson, the first winner of the immensely popular reality television series American Idol. In this collection of poems, Julia asks what it means to be an idol and more specifically an American idol. Using the genre of poetry, Julia conceptualizes multiple questions including how we, the viewers, chose Clarkson as our idol even though she did not embody the stereotypical pop diva of the early 2000s.

You can buy Letters to Kelly Clarkson on Amazon. Follow Julia Bloch on Twitter @julivox or find her at the Kelly Writers House or the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing on campus. 

Photo credit Aldon Nielson