Scattered Clouds: New & Selected Poems

By Reuben Jackson

Scattered Clouds: New Selected Poems is a volume of lyrical, emotionally forthright meditations on love, loss, and longing. The poems are often sobering, but they are not, to quote Langston Hughes, "without laughter." Scattered Clouds contains the complete text of the author's award-winning first collection, fingering the keys; his nationally lauded poem, "For Trayvon Martin"; and his wry, unabashedly romantic suite of ruminations on a long-time and deeply missed friend, the late barbershop owner Amir Yasin, and his widow Khadijah Rollins. These poems, exploring Amir's late-life romance with Kadijah, became a national internet sensation. An introduction by poet Abdul Ali (Cave Canem alumni and author of Trouble Sleeping) places Jackson in his rightful context as a Black American poetry elder, who has influenced generations of younger poets with his musical wisdom as well as his poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Santa Fe Writer's Project
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781942892199

Book preview

Vagorum

Acknowledgments

There is, or can be, as a friend once told me, a lot of life lived between poems.

When it has been nearly 20 years since your first (and only) book, suffice it to say

that the path has changed somewhat.

My friends and I have grown older, wider, (hopefully) wiser, thinner. Some

have transitioned. Still others have died.

I have always been terrible with money. My friends and family

are my life’s riches. Call me George Bailey with a graying Afro.

A brother with a taste for Bean Pie.

There is no way I could thank every person responsible for the love and

support which has kept me on this planet, in spite of myself.

If you are not among those listed below, know that you will always be a part of

my sincere heart.

Special thanks to:

Abdul Ali, Amiri Baraka, Jeanne Benas, Buddy Benas, Champ Benas, Jon West-Bey, Derrick Weston Brown, Linda Brooks, Sarah Browning, David Budbill, Michele Simms-Burton, Nicole Burton, Kenneth Carroll, Sara Donnelly, Mignonette Dooley, Aunt Ernestine, Sharon Farmer, Cody Fiala, Claudia Gary, Geoff Gevalt, Melanie Henderson, Natalie Illum, Major Jackson, Mary Alice Jackson, Pierce Jackson, Brandon Johnson, Dr. Al Jones, Jacquie Jones, Alan King, Kim Kokich, Tami Lewis, E. Ethelbert Miller, Jane Miller, Sami Miranda, the Staff of the Montpelier Bridge, Susan Mumford, Dr. Janice Murakami, Lisa Pegram, Sue Schied, Jenny Schulz, Rachel De Simone, Rose Solari, Silvana Straw, Victoria St. John, Truth Thomas, Meredith Tredeau, Melissa Tuckey.

And special, special thanks to Derrick Hsu and Gut Punch Press, who published fingering the keys in 1991 (way back in the Analog Dynasty, as a dear college friend says).

Thanks to the following publications for giving some of these poems rooms of their own:

Academy of American Poets, poets.org: For Trayvon Martin

Split This Rock’s The Quarry: April 1975

Beltway Poetry Quarterly: Latisha’s House of Beauty, Frank

Jazz Journalists Association: Elegy for the One Step Down

Redux: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pit Bull

The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South: Key West, 1957, Driving South

Fast Talk, Full Volume: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry: white flight, washington, dc, 1958

Callaloo: For Frank Sinatra

Seven Days: Amir & Khadijah: A Suite

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Self-Portrait with Blue Shades On

1: fingering the keys

on the road

shankman’s market

albert james

edward

second grade

1959

changes

1973

17

november poem

a lonely affair

big chill variations

1975

c.

thinking of emmett till

potentially yours

52 west 8th street

jaco

open letter to gato

lady’s way

for duke ellington

i didn’t know about you

the trip

ernie’s tune

leroy

r&b

battle of the bands

thelonius

Reviews for Scattered Clouds

[squeakychu · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had a bit of difficulty with this book of poetry. Much of it was over my head, either because I did not know to what the author was referring or from simply not being a part of the world of jazz as I've been hard of hearing for over twenty years. This author's life (and consequently his poetry) are entrenched in the world of jazz. For the few poems that dealt with race or my beloved city of Washington, DC, I really loved the undestated way Jackson made his thoughts known. Here are two poems that definitely spoke to me.-------------Coming Back Home (Washington, D.C., spring 2018)Walk downA formerly black street--One which is nowWhiter than northern New EnglandYet the gradation of lightKnows youAs does the breezeHumid as longingThey hold youLike her hands didOnce----------If You Met My MotherShe would be warmAnd a bit nervousEyes darting betweenThe white strangerIn love with her babyAnd some semi-distant spaceBetween usShe who worried about my love life(In high school and beyond)Would find herself wrestling with raceWhile seeking a smileSturdy enough to last throughThe pot roast she checksEvery other breathUntil silentlyStubbornly concludingThat this mightBe all right