“origin story is both intensely intimate and utterly everyman. These are poems of both great weight and profound lightness. . . It is impossible to read origin story and not feel obliged to think hard about one’s own upbringing, impossible not to be moved and changed by what these poems bring to light.”—Tim Seibles, author of Fast Animal
“From post–Korean War era to the present day, ongoing brutalities upon Black bodies, and the complexities of a speaker born to a Black-Asian mother and Black father, Jackson’s poems in origin story reveal the porous interconnectedness of our boundaries—bloodlines, memories, trauma, silences—and how origin stories and their contested retellings hold deep roots to our sense of betrayal and belonging.”—Esther Lee, author of Sacrificial Metal
“Gary Jackson’s origin story is a powerful meditation on how we return to and turn away from our beginnings. These exquisite poems search out the source of belonging, whether to people or place. Jackson deftly shows us what can happen when fracture begets connection and erasure becomes revelation. Elegiac, irreverent, and deeply American, this collection testifies to the persistence of memory.”—Amy Fleury, author of Sympathetic Magic
“In origin story, Gary Jackson delivers a work of beauty and talent. Like so much honey down our throats, he channels the voices of his mother, his grandparents, his family, and his encyclopedic knowledge of comics to create a new and necessary universe. It challenges racism and carried assumptions while creating an honest dialogue that ultimately ends with connection and compassion. These poems are where the body becomes word.”—Juan J. Morales, author of The Handyman’s Guide to End Times: Poems
