Showing results for "A.Y. Jackson" in Themes & Styles

The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!) and well worth the wait. These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological, and literary importance, containing the lion's share of information that survives today about the gods and heroes of pre-Christian Scandinavians, their unique vision of the beginning and end of the world, etc.

Freedom reverberates in Skye Jackson’s breathtaking debut, Libre, with evocative poems that are heart-wrenching, haunting, sensual, and tender. This collection explores the experiences of a young Black woman in New Orleans as she navigates the pull of familial and romantic relationships, celebrating the joys of Blackness, art, and friendship. Libre also includes Jackson’s award-winning poem “can we touch your hair?” which was hand selected by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins for inclusion in the Library of Congress Poetry 180 Project.

In Touch the Earth, Drew Jackson continues the project he began in God Speaks Through Wombs, reflecting on the Gospel of Luke through poetry. Touch the Earth picks up in chapter nine and continues through the end of Luke's Gospel. Part protest poetry, part biblical commentary, Jackson presents the gospel story in all its liberative power. Here the gospel is the "fresh words / that speak of / things impossible."

I Am Valuable is a book of poetry that sheds light on all that must truly be treasured. While covering a vast array of topics, including ostracization, temptations, and speculation, the poet focuses on what should be held important the most – love, compassion, and confidence. Most importantly, eternal faith in God and the belief that hard work overcomes hardships is stressed. Rich in tone with profound descriptions, each poem works its magic as the reader revels in its beauty.

In the cold seminal countryside of eastern Washington, a boy puts a bullet through his skull in a high school parking lot. An uncle crushes oxycodone into “a thousand red granules.” Hawks wheel above a dark, indifferent river. “I left that town / forever,” Holbert writes, but its bruises appear everywhere, in dreams of violent men and small stars, the ghosts of friends and pills. These poems incite a complex emotional discourse on what it means to leave—if it’s ever actually possible, or if our roots only grow longer to accommodate the distance.

This collection arguably contains some of the most charming lyrics ever written in English. Blake’s poems can be enjoyed, not only for their historical importance in an age which was fiercely proud of its genius and its traditions, but also for their simple and beautiful expression of “two contrary states of the human soul.” Songs of Innocence was originally a complete collection of twenty-three poems, first printed in 1789. In 1794, a composite collection entitled Songs of Innocence and of Experience, containing forty-seven poems, was published.