On a Road by Jeffrey Kingman

Jeff Kingman‘s work brings me great joy. So glad to have this collection in the world at long last.

–D.A. Powell, winner of the Lyric Poetry Award from the Poetry Society of America

To speak of Kingman’s brilliant, brazenly singular poems in On a Road I turn to Italo Calvino: “…the function of literature is communication between things that are different… because they are different, not blunting but even sharpening the differences between them, following the true bent of written language.” Kingman is a wily conductor orchestrating our attention so that we perceive the profound instabilities inherent in our perception of experience. He does so through startling juxtapositions of the actual, the absurd, the philosophical, the erotic. He is a conductor of instant-by-instant alertness in which a rhythm of equipoise, despite the shocks, becomes apparent. His is a brigand’s bravado as he ambushes our normative expectations and opens us to traveling, as Calvino asserts, the “true bent of written language.” It is a delightful and deeply valuable “road” of instant-by-instant arrivals for those with the courage to embark.

–Rusty Morrison, After Urgency, winner of the Dorset Prize; Senior Editor at Omnidawn Publishing

“grab your ghost and polish,” Kingman invites the reader, “when we woke/it was the next fifteen days.” On a Road’s restless voice of anticipation pays homage to the classic Beat volume and makes it new through a grammar of adventure. A beautifully written continent-wide road trip that blends elements of Kerouac, skillfully condensed to essentials.

–Phillip Barron, What Comes from a Thing, winner of the 2019 Nicolás Guillén Outstanding Book Award