PANK Publishes Early Review of "Scattered Clouds" by Reuben Jackson
Poet Risa Denenberg describes her first experience reading Reuben Jackson in her review for his upcoming collection "Scattered Clouds"
"Abashedly, I admit that I had not read Jackson prior to reading Scattered Clouds. But that is exactly why this compilation of poems from his first book with the two sections of newer poems is such a gem. If some of the poems are familiar, you will nod as you read them. And if not, you will feel like you’ve been missing something. Scattered Clouds further establishes Jackson’s role as a steward of Americana."
—Risa Denenberg, PANK Magazine
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 is a complex poet and figure. Denenberg does an excellent job showing what it is like for readers to pick up the work of Reuben Jackson for the first time, realizing that something very tangible and essentially American has been, up until this moment, missing from their lives
Read Risa Denenberg's full review HERE.
Reuben Jackson served as curator of the Smithsonian’s Duke Ellington Collection in Washington, D.C. for over twenty years. His music reviews have been published in the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Jazz Times, and on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Jackson is also an educator and mentor with The Young Writers Project. He taught poetry for 11 years at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland and taught high school for two years in Burlington, Vermont. His poems have been published in over 40 anthologies; his first volume is fingering the keys, which Joseph Brodsky picked for the Columbia Book Award. Reuben Jackson is currently an archivist with the University of the District of Columbia’s Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives. From 2013 until 2018, he was host of Friday Night Jazz on Vermont Public Radio.