scattered clouds

Reuben Jackson shares a poem, “little man, september 1963” from his upcoming collection “scattered clouds”

In ASP’s first recorded interview, Reuben Jackson talks to Rose Solari about working, living, and writing his newest collection “Scattered Clouds”.

On Tuesday we ran an article featuring two glowing blurbs for Reuben Jackson’s latest poetry collection Scattered Clouds. They came from two young stalwarts of the American poetry community: National Book Award winner, Terrance Hayes, and Maryland’s own Abdul Ali, author of Trouble Sleeping. In honor of Reuben’s devoted following from within the young-blooded poetry vanguard, and for the sake of utilizing his deep insider knowledge of jazz and its many contemporary standouts (Reuben was curator of the Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian for twenty years), we asked Reuben to recommend and comment on three contemporary poets and three contemporary jazz musicians he admires.

What do National Book Award winner, Terrance Hayes, and Poet, Abdul Ali, have to say about Reuben Jackson’s new poetry collection, “Scattered Clouds?”

Poet Risa Denenberg’s glowing review of Scattered Clouds is up on the PANK Magazine website. Her review details the jazz and political influences in Reuben’s work as well as the specters of “racism, suicide, and brutality,” which give some of his poetry a more menacing aspect.

Reuben Jackson muses on writing, life, his own poetry, and a lot more in this informal talk given in Rockville, Maryland.

In this video from the UDC Jazz Forum, jazz scholar, Reuben Jackson, sits down with historian, Rusty Hassan, to discuss his life and career.

MLK Video: Reuben Jackson narrates “March” by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin Hear Reuben Jackson narrate from “March: Book One” in honor of MLK day. If the video is not working, you can follow THIS link to stream it. Happy MLK day! We are super excited to finally see Reuben Jackson’s long awaited narration of […]

In-house ASP wordsmith and noted Jazz Scholar, Reuben Jackson, will be narrating March: Book One, written in part by sitting Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, for the Vermont Youth Orchestra’s celebratory performance of Duke Ellington’s Three Black Kings (which includes an ode to MLK) and Antonin Dvorak’s New World Symphony (which takes inspiration from African American spirituals).

“There’s much said in what’s not said in Reuben Jackson’s poetry. His cleverly sparse style often convincingly veils the complexities of which he writes, just until the poet sharply corrects our deception.” Linda Stiles

Those deceptions Ms. Stiles refers to above often come from Reuben’s use of the child’s point of view. As a child, the narrator, and reader by proxy, is looking up at the absurdity of adult interests and actions with a renewed curiosity. The narrator misses the cut of the barber’s words when asked “aren’t you proud of being negro?” The narrator cannot reason why the neon lights of the roadside motel are fading in the rear-view window, and yet his father seemed once so confident…