Razzle Dazzle: New and Selected Poems 2002-2022 - Paperback

by Major Jackson (Author)

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.

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Praise for Major Jackson

"No American poet wears his genius as lightly as Jackson."
-- John Freeman, LitHub

"Jackson seems to define himself by his eclecticism.... His poems are witty, musical, and intelligent."
-- The New Yorker

"Moments of startling linguistic play interrupt Jackson's elegant, semiformal style."
?Sandra Simonds, New York Times Book Review

"Major Jackson has coined an idiom and music all his own."
?Carl Phillips

"Jackson's adroit lyrics resonate through a kind of fission, the collision of selves and personal histories yielding a most genuine ore."
?Gregory Pardlo

"[Jackson's] lush language invites us into the exquisite realms here at our feet.... Take it in, be fed, feel close to something elemental again."
?Naomi Shihab Nye, New York Times Magazine

"[Major Jackson's] poems explore a sense of place that is profoundly human, their vision expansive and generous.... Jackson has created a new poetry of praise."
?San Francisco Chronicle

"Major Jackson's voice arrives with a dissonant, unforgettable blast of perspectives and forms. This is poetry to listen to, to reckon with."
?Susan Larson, Times Picayune