Sonido De Calle, Boyle Heights, L.A. 2025. Photo Credit: Diana Hsieh
Martin Jago is a British-American poet, nonfiction writer, and stage director who lives between Los Angeles and Great Britain and works internationally.
His debut poetry collection, PHOTOFIT (Pindrop Press, 2023), is available for purchase here. His forthcoming chapbook, BLACK PLASTIC BLUES will be available in 2026 from Finishing Line Press. His poetry and prose have appeared widely in literary magazines like Agenda, Acumen, The Penn Review, The Moth, Presence, LIT Magazine, Blue Unicorn, Indianapolis Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Artillery Magazine, The Friday Poem, Copihue and the poetry podcast Poetry Worth Hearing.
His YouTube channel Lyric Lab Poetry is part of a year-long poetry initiative aimed at providing generative poetry prompts, advice, and musings on all things poetry related. The channel celebrates its one-year anniversary in April 2026, by which time over fifty-two weekly poetry videos will have been posted, watched, and shared!
A respected authority on acting methods relating to Elizabethan drama, Jago is also the author of four critically-acclaimed books on Shakespeare, published in the US by Smith & Kraus, the largest publisher of theatre trade books worldwide.
Prior to the pandemic, he worked as Producing Artistic Director at RAZE THE SPACE, an L.A. based theatre collective that made cutting-edge theatre with community focus and global reach, epitomized by events like RAZE's annual international ten-minute play festival hosted at the Mark Taper Auditorium in L.A's central public library.
An active member of the Los Angeles poetry and theatre scenes, Martin has served as a Steering Committee member and Associate Producer at Directors Lab West, teaches far and wide-- from guest workshops at University of Oxford to Shakespeare Masterclasses at the Malibu Playhouse-- and is proudest of his ongoing community engagement through public poetry workshops at the Los Angeles Public Library and facilitating Beyond Baroque's legendary Wednesday night poetry workshop.
He holds a Master's degree from University of Oxford, where he graduated cum laude, and was an F. H. Pasby Prize finalist.
He also holds a Bachelor's degree in Acting & Theatre from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
