In this collection of essays, interviews, and notes, Major Jackson reveals and revels in the work of poetry to not only limn and give access to the intellectual width and spiritual depth of poets, but also to amplify the controversies and inner conflicts that define our age: political unrest, climate crises, the fallout from bewildering traumas, and the social function of the art itself. Accessible and critically minded, Jackson avoids pedantry and provisional judgments by returning to the poem as an unparalleled source of linguistic pleasure that structures a multilayered "lyric self." In his interviews, Jackson illustrates poetry's distinct ability, through metaphor and expressive language, to mediate the inexplicable while foregrounding the possibilities of human song. Collected over several decades, these essays find Jackson praising mythmaking in Frank Bidart and Ai's poetry, expressing bafflement at the silence of white-identified poets in the cause of social and racial justice, unearthing the politics behind Gwendolyn Brooks's Pulitzer Prize, and marveling at the "hallucinatory speed of thought" in the poetry of a diverse range of poets including Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Brenda Hillman, Afaa Weaver, Forrest Gander, and Terrance Hayes. This collection passionately surveys the radical shifts of the art and notes poetry's ardor and cultural value as a necessity for a modern sensibility.

Inspired by Albert Camus's seminal Myth of Sisyphus, Major Jackson's fifth volume subtly configures the poet as "absurd hero" and plunges headfirst into a search for stable ground in an unstable world. We follow Jackson's restless, vulnerable speaker as he ponders creation in the face of meaninglessness, chronicles an increasingly technological world, and the difficulty of social and political unity, probes a failed marriage and grieves his lost mother with a stunning, lucid lyricism. The arc of a man emerges; he bravely confronts his past, including his betrayals and his mistakes, and questions who he is as a father, as a husband, as a son and as a poet. With intense musicality and verve, The Absurd Man also faces outward, finding refuge in intellectual and sensuous passions. At once melancholic and jubilant, Jackson considers the journey of humanity, with all its foibles, as a sacred pattern of discovery reconciled by art and the imagination.

In his fourth collection, a breakthrough volume, Major Jackson appropriates the vernacular notion of "rolling deep" to capture the spirit of aesthetic travel that defines these forceful new poems and brazenly announces his steady accretion of literary and artistic influences, both formal and experimental-his "crew." The confident and radiant poems in Roll Deep address a range of topics, most prominently human intimacy and war. And like his best work to date, these poems create new experiences with language owed to Jackson's willingness to once again seek a rhythmic sound that expresses the unique realities of the twenty-first century with humor and understanding. Whether set in Nairobi, Madrid, or Greece, the poems are sensuously evocative and unapologetically with-it, in their effort to build community across borders of language and style. From Urban Renewal, "The Dadaab Suite": I have come to Dadaab like an actor on a press release, unprepared for the drained faces of famine-fleeing refugees, my craft's glamour dimmed by hundreds of infant graves, children whose lolling heads' final drop landed on their mothers' backs like soft stones. What beauty can I spell in this swelter of dust?

A preeminent voice in contemporary literature, Major Jackson offers steady miracles of vision and celebrations of language in rapturous, sophisticated poems. Razzle Dazzle traces the evolution of Jackson’s transformative imagination and fierce music through five acclaimed volumes: his Cave Canem Poetry Prize–winning debut, Leaving Saturn (2002), which captures the spirit of resilience in the Philadelphia neighborhoods of the poet’s youth; Hoops (2006), which finds transcendence in the solemn marvels of ordinary lives; Holding Company (2010), which shifts away from narrative to explore the seductive force of art, literature, and music; Roll Deep (2015), which addresses human intimacy, war, and the spirit of aesthetic travel; and his vulnerable, philosophical latest, The Absurd Man (2020). The volume opens with over three dozen new poems that erupt into full-throated song in the face of indignity and invite us into a passionate experience of the world. Taken together, these two decades of writing offer a sustained portrait of a poet “bound up in the ecstatic,” whose buoyant lyricism confronts the social and political forces that would demean humanity. Equally attuned to sensuous connection, metaphysical inquiries, the natural world, and ever-changing urban landscapes, Jackson possesses a sensibility at once global and personal, driven by an enduring conviction in the possibilities of art and language to mark our lives with meaning. Whether addressing racial conflict and the ongoing struggle for human dignity in America, bearing witness to the plight of refugees, or grieving the contradictory nature of humankind, these dexterous poems proclaim the remarkable power of renewal, justice, and accountability.

In his fourth collection, a breakthrough volume, Major Jackson appropriates the vernacular notion of "rolling deep" to capture the spirit of aesthetic travel that defines these forceful new poems and brazenly announces his steady accretion of literary and artistic influences, both formal and experimental-his "crew". The confident and radiant poems in Roll Deep address a range of topics, most prominently human intimacy and war. And like his best work to date, these poems create new experiences with language owed to Jackson's willingness to once again seek a rhythmic sound that expresses the unique realities of the twenty-first century with humour and understanding. Whether set in Nairobi, Madrid or Greece, the poems are sensuously evocative and unapologetically with-it, in their effort to build community across borders of language and style.

Inspired by Albert Camus's seminal Myth of Sisyphus, Major Jackson's fifth volume subtly configures the poet as "absurd hero" and plunges headfirst into a search for stable ground in an unstable world. We follow Jackson's restless, vulnerable speaker as he ponders creation in the face of meaninglessness, chronicles an increasingly technological world and the difficulty of social and political unity, probes a failed marriage, and grieves his lost mother with a stunning, lucid lyricism. The arc of a man emerges; he bravely confronts his past, including his betrayals and his mistakes, and questions who he is as a father, as a husband, as a son, and as a poet. With intense musicality and verve, The Absurd Man also faces outward, finding refuge in intellectual and sensuous passions. At once melancholic and jubilant, Jackson considers the journey of humanity, with all its foibles, as a sacred pattern of discovery reconciled by art and the imagination.

In Hoops, Major Jackson continues to mine the solemn marvels of ordinary lives: a grandfather gardens in a tenement backyard; a teacher unconsciously renames her black students after French painters. The substance of Jackson's art is the representation of American citizens whose heroic endurance makes them remarkable and transcendent.

"Leaving Saturn," chosen by Al Young as the winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, is an ambitious and honest collection. Major Jackson, through both formal and free verse poems, renders visible the spirit of resilience, courage, and creativity he witnessed among his family, neighbors, and friends while growing up in Philadelphia. His poems hauntingly reflect urban decay and violence, yet at the same time they rejoice in the sustaining power of music and the potency of community. Jackson also honors artists who have served as models of resistance and maintained their own faith in the belief of the imagination to alter lives. The title poem, a dramatic monologue in the voice of the American jazz composer and bandleader Sun Ra, details such a humane program and serves as an admirable tribute to the tradition of African American art. Throughout, Jackson unflinchingly portrays our most devastated landscapes, yet with a vividness and compassion that expose the depth of his imaginative powers.