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briandice's review
5.0
What an excellent first collection by a poet that has harnessed the voice of a generation of black men fighting to escape the urban blight that clings to them, all the while retaining those parts of the culture that have formed their better parts. Leaving Saturn is no easy feat; the escape velocity necessary to leave the gravity of the planet requires an amount of energy that boggles the mind. Escaping the clutches of inner-city Philadelphia as a poor African-American male requires a similar effort.
Jackson's poems are his own history; the voices of his friends, family and denizens of his Philly 'hood have the timber of language unstuck from time.
Major Jackson writes with a flavor to colors, a technique that makes his poetry vibrant - a vibrancy that comes from doing battle with the very place that you love, a home that gives you the strength to be able to one day escape it. The beautiful planet that wounds you as it makes you who you will become.
Jackson's poems are his own history; the voices of his friends, family and denizens of his Philly 'hood have the timber of language unstuck from time.
the wind, the stars, oceans
Inhabiting a space reserved for ancestors.
Locked in a rhythm of motion,
Catching up with time, running alongside
Our forefathers.
Major Jackson writes with a flavor to colors, a technique that makes his poetry vibrant - a vibrancy that comes from doing battle with the very place that you love, a home that gives you the strength to be able to one day escape it. The beautiful planet that wounds you as it makes you who you will become.
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