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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1942892187
• ISBN13: 9781942892182
• Release Date: October 2019
• Publisher: Santa Fe Writer's Project
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.7" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

SCATTERED CLOUDS invites readers to witness essential truths about our collective memory.

Reuben Jackson's poems resonate because the images are familiar, while the reader is elevated by the possibility of things changing for the better. His themes are timely and classic. Jackson's writing moves beyond political and personal to the universal. The stories they reveal are essential. His poems should be read and shared widely.