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Jason Shinder, 52
Poet
Jason Shinder, 52, of Provincetown and New York City, died on April 25 at his home in Manhattan.
Shinder was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1955. He was a graduate of Skidmore College, where he received his bachelor of arts degree, and the University of California-Davis.
He was a poet, editor and at the time of his death was the director for the arts & humanities of the YMCA of the U.S.A. In 1979 he created the Writer’s Voice, a literary center at the West Side YMCA. Intended to be a more populist home for the literary arts than other venues, the Writer’s Voice welcomed both emerging and established writers such as Adrienne Rich, E.L. Doctorow and George Plimpton. With support from the Wallace Foundation and the William Bingham Foundation, Shinder later established the National Writer’s Voice Project for the YMCA of the U.S.A., which led to the creation of arts programs for hundreds of YMCAs throughout the country.
Shinder’s first poetry collection, “Every Room We Ever Slept In,” was named a New York Public Library Notable Book. It was followed by “Among Women” in 2001. A final collection is forthcoming from Graywolf Press. His poems appeared in many magazines, including The New Yorker, Paris Review and the American Poetry Review. He edited anthologies of poetry and essays, including “The Poem I Turn To With Audio CD: Actors and Directors Present Poetry That Inspires Them”; “Howl: Fifty Years Later”; “Best American Movie Writing”; and “Tales from the Couch: Writers on Therapy.”
Shinder received literary fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and taught in the graduate writing programs of Bennington College and the New School University. Shinder was also director of the Sundance Institute’s Writing Program. In the words of his Graywolf publisher, Fiona McCrae, “He lived and breathed poetry; his appetite for it was infectious.”
He lived in New York City and Provincetown. In 2006 he was named Provincetown Poet Laureate by the local cultural council.
He is survived by his siblings, Martin and Nina, and two nieces, Jennah and Jamie Kudler.
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Edward C. “Babe” Carreiro
Donald Louis Robinson, 71
Kathryn V. Baker, 85
Nathaniel A. Barney, 86; Mary E. Barney, 87
Victor Pacellini, 85
David “Dixie” Federico
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May 8th, 2008