“Back Cover”

by Denise Duhamel

In Jack Ass’s latest volume, his poems are not mere poems – they are high-frequency waves of sound, juxtapositions of intent and nonsense. One senses that Jack Ass has lived these poems and these poems have lived through him. Jack Ass has worked as a waiter (for two months in high school), a carpenter (for a week and a half, including one rainy Saturday, a day in which he would have preferred to stay at home reading), a delivery boy (he used to shop for his grandmother whom he loved dearly), and is now a professor (for the past two decades) at a cushy private college in New England.

PRAISE FOR JACK ASS:

Jack Ass is a good writer, perhaps a little too good. I read these poems, jealous and afraid, with the awareness that my own work has become stale and irrelevant. As I write “The best of these poems show his promise . . .” I’m actually being passive aggressive, hoping that Jack Ass will not notice I am insulting him, but that savvy potential readers will wonder, “Well, what about the poems that aren’t his best? The ones that don’t show his promise?” – and put Jack Ass’s book back on the shelf.

Jack Ass’s father is the dean of the university where I teach as a junior faculty member. You bet I love this book!

The experimental lushness of Jack Ass’s poetry is astounding. His irreverent use of white space, his turning and returning and churning of phrases, his nods to Pound and Eliot, his winks to ginger snaps and hybrid cars . . . basically, I have no idea what is going on. But that is the charm of Jack Ass. His unintelligibility is ultimately why I will treasure this book for a long time to come.

Jack Ass’s book is stunning, perfect, every divine syllable in place. He’s also a really nice guy and gave me a recommendation for that Guggenheim I won a few years ago. I will always be grateful to Jack Ass, and, of course, to his exceptional first-rate poetry.

This book redefines poetry as we know it! Plus I slept with Jack Ass a few years ago and feel lousy about it – I think he misunderstood our relationship and wanted more. It was the year he was going through his divorce, and he just seemed too neurotic and wounded. So how could I have said no when he asked me for this blurb? I would have felt like the Ice Queen. Well, in any case, I would have stuck it out with Jack Ass if I knew he’d someday write a book as brilliant as this! A must-read – especially pages 37, 41, and 64, which I think are references to me.