small lives: poems

by Gary Jackson

Overview

Poetry, yes. Superheroes, yes. This is a graphic novel in verse. Gary Jackson's work is inspired by Afro-futurism.

small lives renders a graphic novel in verse form. Jackson creates his own metropolis, featuring original and remixed superheroes who are othered for more than just their skin and are subsequently and simultaneously celebrated, destroyed, and desired, illustrating what it means to reside in a country’s brutal imagination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826368423
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	09/02/2025
Series:	Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Gary Jackson is an associate professor of creative writing at the College of Charleston. He is also the author of Missing You, Metropolis, which was the winner of the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

Editorial Reviews

There’s a charmed and charged theater in Gary Jackson’s small lives that’s rare in contemporary poetry. At its center, this book is about power: who has it, how it twists, how it’s weaponized, how it’s abdicated. On its face, it’s a superhero story in the tradition of Moore’s The Watchmen. A welcome counterbalance to our thirty-second culture, small lives is a tender, gritty thriller that resists hopelessness.

Maya Marshall

In Gary Jackson’s compelling third collection, we encounter a fable of sorts. And in the best of fables, the stories told from the perspectives of the Invincible Woman, the Telepath, and Willpower Man all share resonances with our pasts and present. Jackson’s skillful examination of the extraordinary as it mirrors the quotidian invites readers to wonder at the spectacle of supernatural beings who share the brightness of the sun while their interior lives are filled with intense doubt, fear, and hope. Jackson makes these small lives loom large and fierce, bringing all to gather around to watch miracles happen while also encouraging us to acknowledge the cost.

Oliver de la Paz

In small lives, Gary Jackson assembles an intricate universe and a compelling story of a team of black superhumans that discover their powers and themselves in a volatile and cynical world. With prose poems, erasure, and powerful storytelling, these poems blur genres and open your mind to witness amazing feats, the rise and fall of heroes, and maybe even a world saved from itself. Jackson has gifted us with a book that is focused, compassionate, and brimming with imagination.

Juan J. Morales