boy
, the debut poetry collection by Donny Jackson--veteran poet, clinical psychologist, and Emmy Award-winning documentary television producer--is an awakening on an ocean floor of othering, be it color or gender or place, and rise from personae, to unflinching eyewitness, to a devastatingly personal emergence in a cultural tsunami, the swimmer gasping for air.
"
Compressed.
Reflecting the eye of the documentarian who knows "i am news for not being new."
Coded.
Asking "if this is innocent how much more erase would guilty be," while channeling the assassinated passions of lives lost to state violence, lives lost to patriarchal violence
. Unflinching.
Calling us to be courageous and aware and generous enough to "stop and be music with me." - Peter J. Harris, founder,
The Black Man of Happiness Project;
author,
The Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My 'Unalienable Right, '
winner, 2015 American Book Award
"Say their name. Say their name. Say their name. This is what Donny Jackson's poems do. They say the names of the slain turned headlines and hashtags, but Jackson has immortalized them and their stories, which have become our stories. He places the reader in the cell with Kalief Browder, poolside with Dajerria Becton, and the home of a patrolman's wife. His poems take us from Puerto Rico to Texas, while some poems contain the rhythm of a Hughes poem." - Luivette Resto, author of
Ascension
and
Unfinished Portrait
"Donny Jackson's
has a way of ripping out your soul, shredding it, and nurturing it back to form an entirely new existence. His words are Powerful. Gripping. Devastating. Illuminating. Healing. You must experience
." - Jim Clemente, author of
Call Me God
"In Donny Jackson's
the reader is given an extraordinary gift. The opportunity to be equally stimulated both emotionally AND intellectually is rare contemporary creative writing. Donny masters it! From start to finish, you'll think deeply and feel even deeper... culminating in a transformative and entirely unique journey. " - Eboni K. Williams, Co-host,
State of the Culture
, author of
Pretty Powerful: Appearance, Substance, and Success