"Erudite...Moments of startling linguistic play interrupt Jackson's elegant semiformal style... [ The Absurd Man] bring[ s] us back to an existential truth that only poetry's fierce tenderness can offer." -- Sandra Simonds - New York Times Book Review "No American poet wears his genius as lightly as Jackson, whose poems here reach new heights of companionable style." -- John Freeman - LitHub "Poems in Major Jacksons The Absurd Man are fashioned from masks and personae, impersonations and thrown voices. How ironic then that this fifth and most daring book yet sings deeply, solemn and vulnerable, a blues for our times. One of the root meanings of the word absurd is out of tune. To be out of tune with these years of American absurdity, Jacksons adroit lyrics resonate through a kind of fission, the collision of selves and personal histories yielding a most genuine ore. These poems face the music of their own making." -- Gregory Pardlo, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Digest "At the end of his richly introspective and engagingly vulnerable collection, The Absurd Man, Major Jackson, referring to his double self, also a character in the collection, observes wryly, Tragically, he believes he can mend his wounds with his poetry. And in this everything hopeful, elegant, daring, and unsettlingly absurd about The Absurd Man is spoken. Jackson embraces the existential absurdity of this tragedy and yet, in doing so, he gives us poems that dare to challenge hopelessness with language." -- Kwame Dawes, author of City of Bones "Jackson's eye is laser-sharp and wry...Throughout the book, [ his] weaving of mythology and literary references serve as context for confrontations with personal ghosts." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
