De Amerikaanse dichter Marcus Jackson werd geboren op 28 april 1983 in Toledo, Ohio. Na zijn bachelor aan de Universiteit van Toledo vervolgde hij zijn poëziestudie aan de masteropleiding creatief schrijven van NYU en als Cave Canem-fellow. Zijn gedichten zijn verschenen in onder andere The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker en The New York Times Magazine. Zijn dichtbundel, “Rundown”, werd in 2009 uitgegeven door Aureole Press. Zijn debuutbundel, “Neighborhood Register”, verscheen in 2011, en zijn tweede volledige bundel, “Pardon My Heart”, werd in 2018 uitgegeven door TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press. Marcus Jackson doceert aan de MFA-programma’s van Ohio State University en Queens University of Charlotte.
What of Fire?
My therapist has approved my drinking of three whiskeys per night,
her eyes forbearing, knowing well the ruthlessness of night.
The sun having fled as a father might flee, my cousin fathered
a narrow terror while he robbed, with a pistol, a fellow citizen one night.
The encouraging lies of a mother are greatly underpaid job-keepers;
slovenly kings have dealt much wrong money to generals and knights.
My childhood was a lengthy scene of make believe and disaccord—
my favorite things being rain and watching my mother’s cigarettes ignite.
What of fire, among its timelessness and musculature, is not
more divine when burning past the open gates of night?
Evasive Me
Of course there’s a certificate, bleeding
carbon at the creases and impressions,
detailing my metrics and lineage the night
I entered the earthly air in a new hospital
built by the intricate partnership between
Rust Belt governance, capitalism
and Christ, though I lie to people I like,
saying I was born in a garden so near
the sea that my mother—multilingual
and remarkably tall—rinsed me at the fringe
of the tide the morning after labor,
the horizon cloudless and birdless
while the sand whispered spells of protection,
depth, and solemnity upon the pair of us,
and amid this farce my dear listeners
don expressions of distrust or ire
as likely they should, faced with evasive
me, so wearied even before boyhood
by the truth that I’ve forever disallowed
my ears and my mouth any songs not made
from the water, dirt, wind, salt, and fire
of American manipulation.
