Janaka Stucky

From 2002 to 2009, Janaka worked as an undertaker which he says greatly influenced and informed his writing. Janaka’s poetry is compelling, mystical, and transcendent. He’s published four poetry collections: Your Name Is The Only Freedom, The World Will Deny It For You, and The Truth Is We Are Perfect. His most recent collection released in 2019, Ascend Ascend, was written over the course of twenty days, coming in and out of trance states brought on by intermittent fasting and somatic rituals while secluded in the tower of a 100-year-old church.

In 2004, Janaka helped to found Black Ocean, and they published their first books in 2006. Based out of Boston, they also have satellites in Chicago and Detroit. In 2015, Jack White’s Third Man Records launched a new publishing imprint, Third Man Books, and chose Janaka’s full-length poetry collection, The Truth Is We Are Perfect, as their inaugural title. The collection is meant to be performed live, and his occult influences, combined with a mesmeric approach to performance, create an almost ecstatic presence on stage. His poems have appeared in such journals as Denver Quarterly, Fence, and North American Review, and his articles have been published by The Huffington Post and The Poetry Foundation.

Janaka is a two-time National Haiku Champion and in 2010 he was voted “Boston’s Best Poet” in The Boston Phoenix. He mainly works out of Boston, where he likes his whiskey neat and his music dirty.