Title: It seems like a mighty long time : poems /
Authors: Jackson, Angela, 1951-
Year: 2015
Subjects: American poetry
Abstract: Angela Jackson?s latest collection of poetry borrows its title from a lyric in Barbara Lewis?s 1963 hit single ?Hello Stranger,? recorded at Chess Records in Chicago. Like the song, Jackson?s poems are a melodic ode to the African American experience, informed by both individual lives and community history, from the arrival of the first African slave in Virginia in 1619 to post-Obama America. It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time reflects the maturity of Jackson?s poetic vision. The Great Migration, the American South, and Chicago all serve as signposts, but it is the complexity of individual lives?both her own and those who have gone before, walk beside, and come after?that invigorate this collection. Upon surveying so vast a landscape, Jackson finds that sorrow meets delight, and joy lifts up anger and despair. And for all this time, love is the agent, the wise and just rule and guide.
Contents: -- The Fabric of Our Lives -- Crowning -- Perfect Pears -- My Father's Prayers -- Territory -- Hope -- Mama in Blue, White, and Love -- In My Father's House Are Many Stories -- -- Elam House -- The Day after All Saints Day Is All Souls Day -- Her Memory Coming Home -- Photograph: Circa 1960 -- A Thousand Pages -- Pendulum -- Phillis -- After Work -- Vocabulary -- -- The Red Line Is the Soul Train -- Notes above the Stream, a Part of the Stream -- A Woman Was Being Raped -- Eclipse -- Suite: Ida -- Ida Watches -- Two Trains -- Did Ida B. Wells Ever Pass Bessie Smith on the Boulevard? -- Kokomo -- -- Looking Back -- Betrayal -- Hot Pink Flamingoes -- Fuchsia -- The Scarf -- The Rape of Memory -- Sleep -- -- American Justice -- In These Times -- Warm Weather -- Beginner's Luck -- Nocturnal -- Niger: No Exit -- -- The Last Door -- Glory Land -- Haiti, It Has Been Thirty Years Since I Last Saw You -- The Moment of Arrival -- -- The Smoke Queen -- The Good Neighbor Observes the Celebrity Next Door -- You Do Not Know the Hour -- Heaven Is No Recompense -- For Gwen, On Her Passing -- The Poem in the Pocket -- Faith II -- An African Reunion -- The Ritual Calendar of Yes -- Leaf -- April 6, 1991.