ABOUT THIS BOOK

An astounding collection of photographs from a renowned poet

Created during the tumultuous years of 2020 and 2021, Love’s Austere and Lonely Offices: Street Portraits and Poems intersects the lens of accomplished poet and photographer Marcus Jackson with his words. The focus: the Black experience and existence. Amid isolation, protest, and survival, Jackson is the aperture and scribe giving visual consciousness and breath to these human portraits. His camera strips the view of endless cycles of social and moral injustices, presenting a resonant collection of photographs that make space for the moments and the people whose beings represent the ongoing interplay between history, society, and the individual soul.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MARCUS JACKSON earned his bachelor of arts degree at the University of Toledo and continued his poetry studies in NYU's graduate creative writing program and as a Cave Canem Fellow. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine, among other publications. Jackson has one chapbook and two full-length poetry collections, including Pardon My Heart (Northwestern University Press, 2018). He lives with his wife and child in Ohio and directs the MFA programs at Ohio State University.

REVIEWS

“Jackson, delicate and reverent, connects acts of violence and murder against Black lives across multiple generations. His sharp stanzas spell out the needs of humanity—safety, sustenance, shelter. Through tight poetics and rich, black and white photography, Jackson weaves an intricate portrait of progress and reminds us that the past is never far from the present.” —David Flores, contemporary artist

“Marcus Jackson’s lens and language is a powerful voice, rising from his indivisible love of our people. Here, in Love’s Austere and Lonely Offices, we hear Jackson’s ancestors: Robert Hayden, Roy DeCarava, Dawoud Bey, John Coltrane, Langston Hughes, Gordon Parks, Phil Levine, Kamoinge Workshop, and more. Sublime kin to The Sweet Flypaper of Life, Marcus Jackson documents the pulse of his beloved Ohio, gathering us in a humanity that is real, joyous, and defiant. With care and vigorous attention to craft, spanning a visual and textual cosmology, Jackson’s body of work is an ode to the bold, visible beauty and dignity of Black life. His profound gaze is a love song. Place your hands on these photographs, this poetry, and feel your own heart recognize its true face.” —Rachel Eliza Griffiths, acclaimed poet and photographer

“I go to the work of Marcus Jackson always looking for the poetry through which I first came to know him. And every time I find it: in the looks and gestures of his subjects; in the black-and-white of ink on page; the vernaculars of Black presence. Love’s Austere and Lonely Offices makes language of lightness and darkness, of observing and being observed. Visual, lyrical, social: Marcus Jackson writes stunning poems with his camera.” —Terrance Hayes, author of So To Speak

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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