Hi, I'm Jake.

Well, here I am. My name's Jacob Thomas Cohn — Jake to most people, JTC if you know me from Instagram. I grew up a goofy Jewish kid in Belmar, New Jersey, and I got pulled into rap the way a lot of us did: a neighbor put Wu-Tang on for me when I was thirteen or fourteen, and that was that. Hooked. Die-hard ever since.

Somewhere along the way the listening turned into writing. I'd sit down to scribble a verse and look up to realize hours had gone by — what felt like minutes. That's when I knew this was a real thing. Not because anyone told me it was good. Because I'd lost track of time doing it.

I started putting my own verses on paper around nineteen, twenty. A few poetry classes in community college nudged something open — some of my favorite courses I ever took. I knew there was a connection there, between the rap I loved and the poetry I was learning. So I kept writing. For years. Quietly. I made a SoundCloud at some point, uploaded a few poorly recorded songs, never really pushed it out into the world. The audio was rough, my flow was off — but I believed in what I'd written. I knew there was something underneath it.

Why this site exists

At some point it clicked — if I'd been quietly writing for years, the work deserved a home. Not a feed where things scroll past in an afternoon, but a place that holds. Something searchable. Something that doesn't bury what I wrote yesterday by tomorrow morning. A long memory for a body of work I've been building, quietly, for a long time.

What I love is the writing itself. Rap was the door in — and there are still pieces here built around bars and cadence — but most of what I make these days is poetry and reflection. The line that doesn't leave you alone, written to be read more than performed.

My hope is that something here makes you feel a little less alone. That's it. That's the whole project. If a line lands and you save it, screenshot it, send it to someone — that's the work doing what it was meant to do.

What you'll find here

The journal — every poem I've published, most recent first. Searchable, organized by topic, written to be read on any device.

The newsletter — twice a month, new verses delivered to your inbox. No spam, no padding, no sponsored anything. Just words.

Instagram — daily and weekly drops at @rhymesandpoetry_jtc. The site is the long memory; Instagram is the current moment.

Maybe my words will resonate with you. Maybe a line you read here is one you didn't know you needed. That'd be kinda cool. Thanks for reading.