Although poet Major Jackson lives in South Burlington and teaches at the University of Vermont, he's no Robert Frost. Raised by his grandparents in Philadelphia, Jackson comes from urban streets and schools where music, vacant lots and graffiti shaped his African American roots. His first collection, Leaving Saturn, and second, Hoops, explored that personal background in the ongoing sequence poem "Urban Renewal." In Roll Deep, Jackson continues the "Urban Renewal" narrative with 18 new segments describing experiences in the wider world of Greece, Spain, Brazil, Kenya and Italy, in which beauty masks undercurrents of poverty and violence. For example, in "La Barraca Blues Suite" the narrator savors "a daily paper/ ...between sips of café con leche" while knowing "Guernica is down the street." Or in "The Dadaab Suite," the speaker views Kenya's majestic Maasai Mara while "the sound of crushing bones racked my ears;/ a battalion of lions gorged on a half-eaten gazelle."
As poetry editor of the Harvard Review, Jackson firmly grasps contemporary poetry. Roll Deep works within traditional meter as it embraces hip-hop rhythms and references to modern conveniences, still holding to the themes of Jackson's roots. In "Dreams of Permanence" he observes thinly masked racism in a desolate urban scene "before city cops,/ seemingly patrolling only this part of town,/ rush to manhandle some shy kid." In the concluding personal poem, "Why I Write Poetry," among his many reasons, one stands out: "Because my grandfather loved clean syntax,/ cologne, Stacy Adams shoes, Irish tweed caps,/ and women, but not necessarily in that order." More Langston Hughes than Robert Frost, Jackson is a poet of many voices. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.