Major Jackson Kicks Serious Game: Thoughts on Holding Company
Photo credit: Marion Ettlinger
I “met” Mr. Jackson the way all good spy and conspiracy movies imply the world doesn’t work: seemingly by coincidence. It was last August and humid in my mother’s sunroom as I logged on to Poems.com to read the daily offering. I’d been doing this ritual almost every day since December and while I’d enjoyed other poets, none made me pause in simple admiration. The posting I read that fateful summer day had three poems from his current book of poetry, Holding Company. I would go back for months and reread these three poems and in particular the Casanova inspired Tremble.
Fast Forward: Somehow I didn’t buy this book for almost five months (blame it on my shoestring budget or my general forgetfulness) but by the time I did buy it, I’d taken two poetry workshops, one fiction form and theory and one non-fiction elective class. I think my taste has improved and look, mom, I can use big literary words without embarrassing myself. So cracking open the pages of Holding Company, I was concerned that I would look at these poems differently, that I wouldn’t have the same kinship that I had with them before. But I shouldn’t have doubted my future husband.
First, you should know, all of his poems are ten lines with the only concession being where a poem’s line is so long it wraps around to the next. This is the kind of brevity I can get behind. My own poetry is relatively brief and I’m pretty sure it’s because I have a short attention span. I don’t have anything against long poetry (say 2 pages or more) but I do have a serious appreciation for writers who can impart tons of meaning in small packages.
Next, I noted that the book is broken into four named sections. At first I couldn’t find how they connected but I knew, the more I got to know Mr. Jackson, he does nothing without intention. And then I stumbled upon the answers like little bricks sticking out of the sidewalk and if I’d been paying attention I would’ve noticed them but instead, I was surprised and bewildered and a little shamefaced. The sections’ titles are phrases from certain poems and not necessarily poems in the same section. *swoon
But what about the work, Monet, the actual poems. I know you’re all clamoring to know. Well fine, I’ll tell you. The poems of Holding Company are both remote and close. They are frenetic and still, languid but coiled. At times, you will hold one in your head but lose it only to find it again when it wants to be found. Sometimes you will completely understand and you will pat yourself on the back from your own intelligence and then after a second or third reading, you will know, that you know nothing at all. The dictionary will be your friend, as it was mine and don’t be afraid to look up the Biblical, Greek or Ancient references, to get a better grasp of the place you’ve wandered into.
Major Jackson associates. That’s a poetry word for you. He connects two objects or two ideas that have never existed before he paired them but it goes deeper than metaphor and simile. In Life During Wartime he writes, “…young boys expire like comets at the suburbs of your thalamus.” These associations are my only concern for Holding Company‘s mainstream success. Certain poems feel like poetry for poets or academics, like the kind of poetry that the high school class I volunteer with would look at me in stone silence. There’s no denying, Mr. Jackson has a beautiful mind, one that I would love to pick after a glass of wine, but does his intelligence push away his reader?
I don’t have the answer. I do know that Holding Company is about loss and the disorientation a person feels in a place or with a person that was once familiar but things have changed. I also know that poetry is not one-size-fits-all. While I sleep with this book next to my pillow in hopes that through some kind of osmosis I can write like Major Jackson, there is someone out there who disagrees with me completely and that’s okay. But most importantly, I know that when my little soul has connected as much as mine has to the work of Major Jackson, there’s no denying the power of the art.
Tags: Holding Company, Major Jackson
I still have not read any of the Major’s (may I call him that?) work, but after reading this article, I can’t wait to swoon:) I wonder if he will one day do for the next generation what Robert Frost did for me when I first read Stoppin by the Woods on a Snowy Eve.
Thanks for introducing me/us to a great poet. Long long Poets!
Long Live Poets!
Grams say:
Monet: Great thoughts on the poet Mr. Jackson and Holding Company. I admit that had it not been for you, I would not have known this poet. I guess the art of understanding is not giving up, or even better sometimes, not ashamed to bow out and say, “what”!!!! I read Tremble five times and am still baffled. I will continue to read though. Maybe one day I will get it. Again, (GREAT JOB) Love ya
Thanks Grams. I’m just happy that I can introduce you to poetry! That makes me really happy.
Dear Monet,
Will you marry me? And have numerous children that we can then name Stonewall, Andrew, & Michael?
I find you very beautiful and talented in the ways of written words and physical prowess.
Love and lust,
Anonymous Jackson
This is cruel.
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