MY INFINITY

“Didi Jackson’s My Infinity is an infinitely expansive collection with an acute sensitivity to the infinitesimal, ‘the small thump’ of a goldfinch hitting the window, ‘the flash of gold / against the mica sky // as the limp feathered envelope / crumples into the green.’ The magnitude of the sorrows these poems address is harmonized by, and filtered through, a ravishing network of the deeply witnessed particularities, the holy details, of the natural world. Bringing sweep and texture and experimental energy to the collection are boldly imagined ekphrastic poems, originating from the work of Swedish abstract artist and mystic Hilma af Klint. These poems unbolt a portal, allowing Jackson to access her own visionary powers, the language of ‘hunger and awe.’ The result is a poetry so alive that it has the capacity to cradle the dead, to offer a ‘mercy that strips us naked to each other.’ I am moved and transformed by Didi Jackson’s infinity.”

—Diane Seuss, author of frank: sonnets and Modern Poetry 

“In the beautifully rendered book of poems, My Infinity by Didi Jackson, the speaker’s voice is meditative, pensive, and warm. Tonally, these poems represent that time of day which is near dusk and twilight, when the day is mostly finished, but is scarred with too much knowledge. My Infinity grapples with the aftermath of a lover’s suicide, alongside new love and joy. Whether it is corresponding with the visual art of Hilma af Klint or the natural world, nothing is too small for this speaker to look at, as with a microscope, and correspond with, as one might correspond with the moon. Here is a poet of witness of awe alongside the music of pain and grief, and of the ‘mercy that strips us naked to each other.’”

—Victoria Chang, author of With My Back to the World and OBIT

"In Moon Jar, Didi Jackson gives poignant testimony to the sorrow, rage, and piercing clarity of grief. And she bears radiant witness to the moment when bereavement gives way to new joy. These poems are breathtaking and frank, and they constitute a bridge into the regions of the inner life where words too often fail to reach.”

—Tracy K. Smith, author of Life on Mars, a Pulitzer winner

“Moon Jar is one of the loveliest and most honest books about grief and the long road back to hope and love that I’ve read in a very long time. These poems tell Didi Jackson’s story of losing her husband to suicide and the enormous grief of that loss. But they also show us how we survive such a loss, and that love and life can be ours again. I read this book once, and then again, and again. Jackson’s words comfort us, and remind us what it means to be vulnerable and human.”

—Ann Hood, New York Times Bestselling Author

This debut sparkles with haunting, wrenching, breath-taking poems that bear witness to grief and survival.  A spouse takes his life, and a poet struggles to find meaning in what it means to live and bear witness to an inscrutable act.  Is a future possible, when suffering exists, she asks?   Reinventing biblical narratives, and turning to the natural world and to art, and finally to love, the poems in MOON JAR, fearless and unrelenting, redefine what it means to be alive.

—Jill Bialosky, author of History of a Suicide, Poetry Will Save Your Life: A Memoir, and The Players