Touch the Earth – Poems on The Way

Gather it from memory. Let it touch the earth. In Touch the Earth, Drew Jackson continues the project he began in God Speaks Through Wombs, reflecting on the Gospel of Luke through poetry. Touch the Earth picks up in chapter nine and continues through the end of Luke's Gospel. Part protest poetry, part biblical commentary, Jackson presents the gospel story in all its liberative power. Here the gospel is the "fresh words / that speak of / things impossible." From the feeding of the multitude ("The best hosts always provide / take home containers") to the resurrection of Jesus ("the belly of mother Earth / is, indeed, a womb . . . the humus of life is where we become fully human"), this collection helps us hear the hum of deliverance-against all hope-that's been in the gospel all along.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Pádraig Ó Tuama Part I: Journey I. Students Touch the Earth Take Nothing Shake the Dust In Their Garden House of Hunting, House of the Hunter Silence Disrupted We Feed Each Other Leftovers Streets Is Talking Crazy Talk Sōtēr, Pt. II Inner Circle Transfigured The Tragedy of the Disinherited Human Hands And What of Greatness? With or Against Like Flint A Rebuke The Call in Three Movements II. Neighbors Squad Up A Harvest of Dreamers Romulus and Remus Instructions for the Freedom Struggle Maledictions Power to the People To Live and to Live On Apokalypsis (Tell Me) Touch Yo' Neighbor Nobody Talks About the Road For Those Who Choose to Sit III. Prayer A Certain Place Curious Observation Pray Then Like This Imagine, or, Suppose Thoughts on Asking, Seeking, and Knocking Ode to Pop Silenced This Haunted House Redemption Blessedness The Sign of Jonah Washing Dishes Weightier Matters When the Truth Insults Me Monuments IV. Hypocrisy Meanwhile Hypocrisy Eyes on the Sparrow Blasphemy Ode to the Savings Account Pigeon Economics Four Boys Miles When the Rain Comes V. Tyrants There Are Pontius Pilates in Every Age Survivor's Guilt To Become a Flower Which Lives? Don't Despise Small Beginnings Eschatology Ask Them Why Foxes A Lament for the Prophets We've Killed VI. Dinner Guest Thanksgiving Etiquette Lex Et Ordo Breaking Saint Coltrane With Strings Attached I Am a Conflict-Free Zone We All Eat These Bags Salty Ghazal VII. Found For the Ones Called Lost This Side of the Pasture To Be Still Is to Be Found There is a Great Joy That Waits Prodigal Give Me My Share Distant Country Brink When I Came to Myself Rehearsal Where the Road and Sky Shake Hands Like a Slave VIII. Economics Rich Man Situation Ethics Interrogating Mammon For the Love Wishes Dog Spells God Backwards Threshold When the Prophets Come IX. Kingdom Come Stumbling Blocks Be on Guard If Another Disciple Sins Pine-Sol and Gospel Music Every Living Thing Was Once a Seed Gold Star For I Am Like Jonah Kindness Travels Roses for God The Faces of the Blessed The Kingdom of Trees Ordinary Days Remember Lot's Wife Aetos X. Mercy The Virtue of Annoyance When Hatred Goes to Church Facing Heaven Blocking Blessing Even Infants What Must I Do? Mortally Impossible Comprehension What Do You Want Me to Do for You? XI. Reparation Wee Little Man Tree Climbing I Think It Was Brunch No Repentance Without Repair The Waiting Game Part II: Jerusalem XII. Triumph Beast of Burden Hosanna Singing Rocks The Last Frontier Flipping Tables XIII. Questions Haiku: Unanswered Beautiful Rejection Machinations Give to Caesar In the Age to Come For the Sake of Appearance XIV. Warnings Butterscotch Hard Candy Building Campaign Before It All Ends Imminence When the Powers of Heaven Shake Sometimes Death Comes N.Y. State of Mind XV. Passion 30 Pieces Upper Room Eucharisteo This Is My Body This Cup Towel and Basin The Kingdom Is Ours Sifted Two Swords A Stone's Throw Kiss of Death Peirasmos Like a King Death Row Trial #1 XVI. Death Death Row Trial #2 Death Row Trial #3 Death Row Trial #4 Via Crucis: Sweet Blackness Via Crucis: Daughters of Jerusalem Via Crucis: Two Others Forgive Them, Father The Ninth Hour Spectacle Saturday XVII. Resurrection Under the Ground Emmaus Paranormal Activity Fish Fry Ascension Acknowledgments

About the Author :
Drew Jackson is the founding pastor of Hope East Village in New York City. He is also the author of the poetry collection God Speaks Through Wombs. He and his wife have twin daughters and live in Lower Manhattan.

Review :
"In Touch the Earth, Drew Jackson's poetry offers a word-weary world a new language of engagement, disruption, and insight. As with all great poetry, the words are spare, but the literary images loom large, creating indelible impressions on the reader. Like echoes that reverberate long after the first sound, the poems stay with you, they dance with your spirit. After reading the poem 'Shake the Dust,' I am still considering a much broader definition of power, one no longer confined to the monarchs, governments, and oppressors but with a conscience as sticky as cling wrap that refuses to allow its memories to be shaken loose. This collection is a meditative treasure." "Touch the Earth is an interdisciplinary work full of Blackness, divinity, grief, community, and many other elements of life that make us human, specific yet universal. It's not a text that one can digest quickly. Each word has to seep into the grooves of the body." "I'm one of those people who likes the idea of reading poetry more than actually reading it. Occasionally, however, I stumble on a poet like Drew Jackson, whose lyrical language and urgent themes set a hook in me. Drawing on the liberating Jesus of Luke's Gospel, Jackson explores heritage, history, and a longing for freedom. Touch the Earth pushes back against the spirit of scarcity and invites readers into an achingly authentic spirituality. Whether you are a 'poetry person' or not, this book will leave you mesmerized." "Drew Jackson's poetry touches something very deep in me as he exposes truths not easily spoken of directly and yet truths that must be told . . . and faced. I pray you will partake of Drew's newest collection of poems with an open heart and an open Bible, engaging familiar stories with new and different eyes. Promise me you will not rush through them but that you will sit still and ponder, for a very long time, on what these things might mean. Promise me you will sit with the questions these poems raise until God speaks and tells you what is yours to do in response. I know that's what I will be doing!" "This collection is a companion for mystics and storytellers alike. Poem after poem, Drew Jackson approaches questions of community and trust and meets them not with the bore of certainty but a reverence for the unspoken, for mystery and suspense. Jackson's words will leave you waiting in the silence . . . but never alone." "There are seasons for prose and seasons for poetry, and we find ourselves, certainly, in the latter. I can think of no better guide and no more insightful voice for this moment than Drew Jackson's. Drew's ability to challenge and surprise through language and rhythm is unparalleled, and I'm so grateful for these poems." "In Touch the Earth, Drew Jackson gives us language for how to move through the earth and toward one another."