Philly Poet Debut, A Womanist Mixtape of Multivocal Sister-Songs
Alexis V. Jackson’s My Sisters’ Country
Publication date: Jan. 31, 2022 All pre-orders ship on this date.
ISBN: 978-1-888553-79-6, 104 pp., 6×9”, Paper, $17.95
Category: Poetry
See Ari Schill’s interview with Alexis here.
Philadelphia-born, San Diego-based writer Alexis V. Jackson’s completely original debut poetry collection My Sisters’ Country is due out from Kore Press in January 2022. Jackson artfully braids together a multi-vocal chorus of Black women’s voices across, over, under, and through time. Included in the vast array of voices are her great-grandmother, Black feminist scholar Hortense Spillers, musical artist Missy Elliott, and the wide-brimmed, white-gloved church ladies of her Philadelphia youth.
Jackson bends and breaks forms like the sonnet, pantoum, and zuihitsu and introduces the playlist poem as she explores the makings of Black girlhood and womanhood. Staying true to the beauties, traumas, moans and undoings found there, the poet invites readers to consider the ways Black women, who were once considered countryless property, made country out of and in one another.
Vast in scope and style, Jackson’s collection is deeply influenced by Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, rapper Lil’ Kim, gospel singers CeCe Winans and the Clark Sisters, actor-singer Jill Scott, as well as her favorite pastor.
PRAISE for My Sisters’ Country
Alexis V. Jackson
“Jackson’s scope is limitless. ‘Christ is supposed to give me salvation for my soul,/ but what about my thighs, and my mouth, and my pancreas,’ she writes. This is a book of the body, unbound by convention while creating entirely new ones.”—Lynn Melnick, author of Landscape with Sex and Violence
“There are some voices who come along and remind you of the beauty in our vulnerability. They write in a way that doesn’t leave us exposed but holds us close as we face the truths of our lives. Alexis Jackson is one such writer.”—Candice Benbow, author of Red Lip Theology
“From Gwendolyn Brooks to June Jordan to the Book of Genesis, Jackson’s debut poetry sizzles and samples with mischief. It’s gutbucket, daredevil, Double Dutch, next-generation sass.”–Yona Harvey, author of Hemming the Water, co-author with Ta-Nehisi Coates of Black Panther and the Crew
Alexis V. Jackson is a Philadelphia-born, San Diego-based writer and teacher whose work has appeared in Jubilat, The Amistad, La Libreta, Solstice Literary Magazine, and 805 Lit among others. Jackson earned her MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts and her BA in English from Messiah University. Erica Hunt selected My Sisters’ Country as second-place winner of Kore Press Institute’s 2019 Poetry Prize. Jackson lectures in the University of San Diego’s English Department, and has taught poetry at Messiah University. She was a Ruth Lily finalist in 2021.