Jackie Sheeler is a poet and poetry MC working in her native New York City, who has toured nationally as a spoken word artist. Her poetry captures the harder side of her city, often witnessing the conflicts between urban people at devastatingly close range. Intimate with her city, the people, and the situations around her, Sheeler writes and performs from the authority of experience. Her second book, Off the Cuffs [2003, Soft Skull Press] is an anthology of police poetry that has received rave reviews. Sheeler's online presence is also considerable. Her personal website is shoutedword.com, and in 1999 she founded poetz.com, a premier poetry resource for New York City.
The poems below were recorded at e-poets.net studios in Chicago, and were
mostly taken from Sheeler's first printed collection, The Memory Factory, which won the Magellan prize in 2002.
Jackie Sheeler is a poet and poetry MC working in her native New York City, who has toured nationally as a spoken word artist. Her poetry captures the harder side of her city, often witnessing the conflicts between urban people at devastatingly close range. Intimate with her city, the people, and the situations around her, Sheeler writes and performs from the authority of experience. Her second book, Off the Cuffs [2003, Soft Skull Press] is an anthology of police poetry that has received rave reviews. Sheeler's online presence is also considerable. Her personal website is