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And All These Roads Be Luminous: Poems Selected and New
As Angela Jackson has developed as a poet, her poetry has engaged various artistic perspectives yet always maintains a characteristic combination of compassion, grace, and daring. Drawing from earlier works contained in chapbooks, And All These Roads Be Luminous is filled with a world of characters engaged in explorations of identity, sexuality, creativity, and spirituality--all revealed through a passionate verse brimming with surprises.
- GenresPoetry
197 pages, Hardcover
First published February 20, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 3, 2008
I find myself reading this book every year around the holidays. It is earthy and spiritual. There are many great poems in this book. Here's one I used for a Christmas card one year:
The Resolution
Willie was drinking Mist and mixing batter
and mistook the Mist for milk.
Didn't intend to make so happy a cake
but that was a pleasurable mistake
of which we partook with sliding smiles.
It was too late to turn back
after one and one-half pounds of butter
after a half-dozen egges devoted to what
was to come in coconut
and chocolate pecan.
This was our lesson for the New Year:
Be devoted to delight, be bringer
of good cheer, stir as right as you
might, and turn away from no
ingenious serendipity, discard no sleight
of hand, and do the sweetest you can.
The Resolution
Willie was drinking Mist and mixing batter
and mistook the Mist for milk.
Didn't intend to make so happy a cake
but that was a pleasurable mistake
of which we partook with sliding smiles.
It was too late to turn back
after one and one-half pounds of butter
after a half-dozen egges devoted to what
was to come in coconut
and chocolate pecan.
This was our lesson for the New Year:
Be devoted to delight, be bringer
of good cheer, stir as right as you
might, and turn away from no
ingenious serendipity, discard no sleight
of hand, and do the sweetest you can.
March 6, 2023
Feels of a piece with the confessional lyricism offered by Sonia Sanchez in the 60s, also perhaps the language of Jayne Cortez. There is much reflecting on the nature of Black diasporic being here, especially in the final third or so. Some of my favorites include "Why I Must Make Language," "Monroe, Louisiana," and "Black Atlanta Mother Waits at Window, 1981."You can strongly feel Jackson Jackson's emphasis on relationship between consciousness and place across the writing.
"i would find you curled and crusted
waiting to board
yet
where layers of flesh have fallen from you
and wrinkled the earth to madness we
would fall into place: bowled-seats
would cut out each others' eyes and stare
against the glass-peeling
where our names are not spoken"
(from "The Cost of Living," another favorite, and one I was happy to share with a reading group)
"i would find you curled and crusted
waiting to board
yet
where layers of flesh have fallen from you
and wrinkled the earth to madness we
would fall into place: bowled-seats
would cut out each others' eyes and stare
against the glass-peeling
where our names are not spoken"
(from "The Cost of Living," another favorite, and one I was happy to share with a reading group)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews