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The Big Book of Exit Strategies
Praise for Jamaal May:
"Linguistically acrobatic [and] beautifully crafted. . . . [Jamaal May's] poems, exquisitely balanced by a sharp intelligence mixed with earnestness, makes his debut a marvel."—Publishers Weekly
Following Jamaal May's award-winning debut collection, Hum (2013), these new poems explore parallel landscapes of the poet's interior and an insidious American condition. Using dark humor that helps illuminate the pains of maturity and loss of imagination, May uncovers language like a skilled archaeologist—digging up bones of the past to expose what lies beneath the surface of the fragile human condition.
From: "Ask Where I've Been":
Ask about the tornado of fists.
The blows landed. If you can
watch it all—the spit and blood frozen
against snow, you can probably tell
I am the too-narrow road winding out
of a crooked city built of laughter,
abandon, feathers and drums.
Ask only if you can watch streetlights bow,
bridges arc, and power lines sag,
and still believe what matters most
is not where I bend
but where I am growing.
Jamaal May is a poet, editor, and filmmaker from Detroit, Michigan, where he taught poetry in public schools and worked as a freelance audio engineer and touring performer. His poetry won the 2013 Indiana Review Poetry Prize and appears in journals such as Poetry, Ploughshares, the Believer, NER, and the Kenyon Review. May has earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College as well as fellowships from Cave Canem and The Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University. He founded the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Press.
"Linguistically acrobatic [and] beautifully crafted. . . . [Jamaal May's] poems, exquisitely balanced by a sharp intelligence mixed with earnestness, makes his debut a marvel."—Publishers Weekly
Following Jamaal May's award-winning debut collection, Hum (2013), these new poems explore parallel landscapes of the poet's interior and an insidious American condition. Using dark humor that helps illuminate the pains of maturity and loss of imagination, May uncovers language like a skilled archaeologist—digging up bones of the past to expose what lies beneath the surface of the fragile human condition.
From: "Ask Where I've Been":
Ask about the tornado of fists.
The blows landed. If you can
watch it all—the spit and blood frozen
against snow, you can probably tell
I am the too-narrow road winding out
of a crooked city built of laughter,
abandon, feathers and drums.
Ask only if you can watch streetlights bow,
bridges arc, and power lines sag,
and still believe what matters most
is not where I bend
but where I am growing.
Jamaal May is a poet, editor, and filmmaker from Detroit, Michigan, where he taught poetry in public schools and worked as a freelance audio engineer and touring performer. His poetry won the 2013 Indiana Review Poetry Prize and appears in journals such as Poetry, Ploughshares, the Believer, NER, and the Kenyon Review. May has earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College as well as fellowships from Cave Canem and The Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University. He founded the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Press.
100 pages, Paperback
First published April 12, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
February 19, 2023
I discovered May’s work when I was in grad school teaching my first poetry (literature) course. I selected his poem, “The Gun Joke” alongside Bob Hicok’s poem “Mirror” to try and get students to talk about art and politics and difficult conversations Americans struggle to have about gun violence.
So much gun violence.
I love teaching “The Gun Joke” because it is a great text to help students think through literary or rhetorical analysis—why do these words, in this order, evoke authenticity, truth, and emotion so well?
On February 13th, 2023, a gunman walked into Berkey Hall at Michigan State University and shot students. Then he walked over to the Student Union Building—the building I snuck into at two a.m. to email love-letters to my future husband in the mid-nineties—and shot more students. And then he fled. And then he shot himself on a road that runs behind my childhood home.
I read May’s poem to a group of people celebrating black and African American literature for Black History Month on my little campus this week. I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful to have a poem to speak for me—to illuminate what conversations, news reports, hearsay, weeping friends, and grieving communities cannot capture.
The Gun Joke
Jamaal May
It’s funny, she says, how many people are shocked by this shooting and the next and next and the next. She doesn’t mean funny as in funny, but funny as in blood soup tastes funny when you stir in soil. Stop me if you haven’t heard this one: A young man/old man/teenage boy walks into an office/theater/daycare/club and empties a magazine into a crowd of strangers/family/students.
Ever hear the one about the shotgun? What do you call it when a shotgun tests a liquor store’s bulletproof glass? What’s the difference between a teenager with hands in the air and a paper target charging at a cop? What do you call it when a man sets his own house on fire, takes up a sniper position, and waits for firefighters?
Stop me if you haven’t heard this one: The first man to pull a gun on me said it was only a joke, but never so much as smiled. The second said this is definitely not a joke, and then his laughter crackled through me like electrostatic—funny how that works. When she says it’s funny she means funny as in crazy and crazy as in this shouldn’t happen. This shouldn’t happen as in something is off. Funny as in off—as in, ever since a small caliber bullet chipped his spine, your small friend walks kinda’ funny and his smile is off.
File Under: Detroit Poets
So much gun violence.
I love teaching “The Gun Joke” because it is a great text to help students think through literary or rhetorical analysis—why do these words, in this order, evoke authenticity, truth, and emotion so well?
On February 13th, 2023, a gunman walked into Berkey Hall at Michigan State University and shot students. Then he walked over to the Student Union Building—the building I snuck into at two a.m. to email love-letters to my future husband in the mid-nineties—and shot more students. And then he fled. And then he shot himself on a road that runs behind my childhood home.
I read May’s poem to a group of people celebrating black and African American literature for Black History Month on my little campus this week. I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful to have a poem to speak for me—to illuminate what conversations, news reports, hearsay, weeping friends, and grieving communities cannot capture.
The Gun Joke
Jamaal May
It’s funny, she says, how many people are shocked by this shooting and the next and next and the next. She doesn’t mean funny as in funny, but funny as in blood soup tastes funny when you stir in soil. Stop me if you haven’t heard this one: A young man/old man/teenage boy walks into an office/theater/daycare/club and empties a magazine into a crowd of strangers/family/students.
Ever hear the one about the shotgun? What do you call it when a shotgun tests a liquor store’s bulletproof glass? What’s the difference between a teenager with hands in the air and a paper target charging at a cop? What do you call it when a man sets his own house on fire, takes up a sniper position, and waits for firefighters?
Stop me if you haven’t heard this one: The first man to pull a gun on me said it was only a joke, but never so much as smiled. The second said this is definitely not a joke, and then his laughter crackled through me like electrostatic—funny how that works. When she says it’s funny she means funny as in crazy and crazy as in this shouldn’t happen. This shouldn’t happen as in something is off. Funny as in off—as in, ever since a small caliber bullet chipped his spine, your small friend walks kinda’ funny and his smile is off.
File Under: Detroit Poets
July 8, 2017
I could only read so much of this in one sitting because every line comes at you like a fist to a different part of your body.
The violence done to black men. The devastation of war and the burying of the dead. The terror of guns and the fragility of life. Ow, ow, ow.
But it also includes homages to the city of Detroit and love poems for Tarfia Faizullah.
Although every single poem in this collection is worth your time, here are some of my favorites:
"There Are Birds Here"
"FBI Questioning During the 2009 Presidential Inauguration"
"The Gun Joke"
"Yes, I Know She's Dying"
"It Shakes Us Still"
"Unsigned Letter to a Human in the 21st Century"
This book is much more thematically eclectic than May's previous book, but it's just as beautiful. I imagine I will always be surprised and never disappointed by his words. They always ring both true and strange, like a gospel in a language we don't quite understand.
The violence done to black men. The devastation of war and the burying of the dead. The terror of guns and the fragility of life. Ow, ow, ow.
But it also includes homages to the city of Detroit and love poems for Tarfia Faizullah.
Although every single poem in this collection is worth your time, here are some of my favorites:
"There Are Birds Here"
"FBI Questioning During the 2009 Presidential Inauguration"
"The Gun Joke"
"Yes, I Know She's Dying"
"It Shakes Us Still"
"Unsigned Letter to a Human in the 21st Century"
This book is much more thematically eclectic than May's previous book, but it's just as beautiful. I imagine I will always be surprised and never disappointed by his words. They always ring both true and strange, like a gospel in a language we don't quite understand.
August 7, 2022
What an experience. I really enjoyed this book. The poems are very bold and hip, twisty and sharp. Bountiful with creativity that inspires wonder and half-cocked smiles stuck for days , this collection is a banger. My very favorite poems are 'The Spirit Names of Stolen Books', 'The Whetting of Teeth', 'The Hollow Made by Her Open Fist', and the perfect outro, 'And for My Last Trick'. Incredible collection! Recommended.
"Many mouths open and close
around so many children with tiny fists
for eyes, no one can stop remembering
how greedy the land is. How it calls
all of us back, spoiled by the ease
at which we always come."
-from the poem 'Open Mouth Requiem
"Many mouths open and close
around so many children with tiny fists
for eyes, no one can stop remembering
how greedy the land is. How it calls
all of us back, spoiled by the ease
at which we always come."
-from the poem 'Open Mouth Requiem
July 12, 2016
I love Hum, Jamaal May's first book, so much that I sort of put off reading this one (which I bought from the Alice James table at AWP a few months ago). Turns out, this book is just as good. Maybe even better. This a collection of amazing, brilliant, moving, heartfelt poems.
Every poem in here steals a little bit of one's breath. I had to stop after each poem, to sit with it for a moment and process what I just read. There are poems here that engage with race in America, with urban life (Detroit in particular), with violence, and there are love poems. Oh, the love poems. Addressed to May's partner, Tarfia Faizullah (also one of the best poets writing in America), these are heart-rending, skin-tingling love poems: "every direction I move has always been / will one day be, // once was, and always is / toward the precarious cliff / of your collarbone."
My favorite poems in the book -- well I mean, kind of all of them -- but in particular, the opening poem "Ask Where I've Been," the closing poem "And for My Last Trick"; also, "There Are Birds Here," "The Gun Joke," "The Hollow Made by Her Open Fist," and "Yes, I Know She's Dying." I could go on. I will be reading this book forever.
Every poem in here steals a little bit of one's breath. I had to stop after each poem, to sit with it for a moment and process what I just read. There are poems here that engage with race in America, with urban life (Detroit in particular), with violence, and there are love poems. Oh, the love poems. Addressed to May's partner, Tarfia Faizullah (also one of the best poets writing in America), these are heart-rending, skin-tingling love poems: "every direction I move has always been / will one day be, // once was, and always is / toward the precarious cliff / of your collarbone."
My favorite poems in the book -- well I mean, kind of all of them -- but in particular, the opening poem "Ask Where I've Been," the closing poem "And for My Last Trick"; also, "There Are Birds Here," "The Gun Joke," "The Hollow Made by Her Open Fist," and "Yes, I Know She's Dying." I could go on. I will be reading this book forever.
June 1, 2023
this was frustrating and confusing and rarely was i able to pin down the subject matter. i feel that books have the obligation to follow at least some sort of reasoning; this did not. it was like reading strings of incoherent words...i mean sure, it was grammatically correct English, but it didn't make sense, and not in a charming, thought-provoking, or whimsical way.
2 stars for the more comprehensible poems.
2 stars for the more comprehensible poems.
July 9, 2020
Jamaal May showed up in my inbox years ago via poem-a-day. Recently i was lucky enough to find out we're geoproximate, which of course was enough encouragement to read him. Otherwise i might never have read this affecting collection. (Even more good fortune: May refers to another Detroiter, Matthew Olzmann, whom i've found equally good.)
My personal fave in the collection, "Shift", includes:
The following is part of a 2020 Pandemic Project: using poets' repetitions to make something i'm now calling repoesy.
My personal fave in the collection, "Shift", includes:
...I don't knowand
if it's better to be good at a bad job or bad at a good job,
but there must be some kind of satisfaction
in doing a job so poorly, you are never asked to do it again.
...
I learned that I'd work any job this hard, ache
like this to know that I could always ache for something.
There's a hell for people like us
where we shovel the coal we have mined ourselves
into furnaces that burn the flesh from our bones
nightly, and we never miss a shift.
The following is part of a 2020 Pandemic Project: using poets' repetitions to make something i'm now calling repoesy.
Listen, zombie Jesus:
the field thorn is
a ruin; smoke, ashes,
and blood. Bend and follow me against
meetings and dust.
Beat them. Sweat as
if clenched in the arms
of a lover. Thump the war, the beast.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
if you'd like to make your own
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
a thorn is |or| thorn is a
bend and |or| and bend
dust and |or| and dust
against|
ashes and|
beat them|
blood|
follow me|
listen|
meetings|
ruin|
smoke|
sweat as if clenched in the arms of a lover|
the beast|
the field|
the war|
thump|
zombie Jesus|
September 26, 2021
A few of these poems are truly inspired. The rest are of ordinary quality, in my humble opinion.
July 24, 2018
I liked Jamaal May's writing style a whole whole lot. My favorites were FBI Questioning During the 2009 Presidential Inaguration, especially the first stanza, and Conducting Ivy with the Girl Down the Street and The Unseen Hand of Zombie Jesus. I also greatly enjoyed the two poems that were for Tarfia.
"And when she says drums I break into a broken little beatbox but she covers my mouth / kisses the back of her hand and beings to articulate the green that just keeps rising out of us."
"My friend, I write because I love you enough to ask for what is terrible: run farther than your feet can possibly carry your heart. I love you enough to confess that you will fail but fail closer to the finish line than if you lie down before the start gun fires."
"And when she says drums I break into a broken little beatbox but she covers my mouth / kisses the back of her hand and beings to articulate the green that just keeps rising out of us."
"My friend, I write because I love you enough to ask for what is terrible: run farther than your feet can possibly carry your heart. I love you enough to confess that you will fail but fail closer to the finish line than if you lie down before the start gun fires."
April 25, 2020
Very powerful poems here. Some of my favorite moments:
Ask about the tornado of fists.
A young man/old man/teenage boy walks into an office/nightclub/day care/church and empties a magazine into a crowd of strangers/ enemies/family/students.
My mom became an ornithologist the moment a grackle tumbled through barbecue smoke and fell at her feet.
Tomorrow wears a smile that nobody can use.
Ask about the tornado of fists.
A young man/old man/teenage boy walks into an office/nightclub/day care/church and empties a magazine into a crowd of strangers/ enemies/family/students.
My mom became an ornithologist the moment a grackle tumbled through barbecue smoke and fell at her feet.
Tomorrow wears a smile that nobody can use.
April 10, 2023
Sharp and twisting, May's poems are a beautiful balancing act of vulnerability and fierceness. The collection flows nicely and some of the poems were so powerful I had to share them immediately after reading them.
There were a few poems I couldn't get into but I liked the collection overall and I will definitely be reading Hum.
There were a few poems I couldn't get into but I liked the collection overall and I will definitely be reading Hum.
September 16, 2020
WOW. I loved everything about this collection! I felt every line of this so deeply, it gave me goosebumps in many parts. May covers so many different topics, but the thread that keeps them all tied together is Detroit. It's so easy to lose yourself in these poems and May's voice is powerful, like music and heartache tied together. My favorites in here are "The Gun Joke", "To Detroiters I May Have Called by the Wrong Names", and "FBI Questioning During the 2009 Presidential Inauguration".
Man...I actually feel a little speechless right now. I've never really talked about/reviewed a poetry collection before, and I'm not sure I can do this beautiful collection justice. Just please read it!
Man...I actually feel a little speechless right now. I've never really talked about/reviewed a poetry collection before, and I'm not sure I can do this beautiful collection justice. Just please read it!
May 25, 2016
Not as thematically tight as Hum but the sheer diversity of subject and tones makes this collection of poems a good overview of May's work.
This collection absolutely must be read out-loud as the poet's beautiful use of beat, and contrasting assonance/consonance make the poems roll off one's tongue. I found that without standing and reading them, several poems went over my head, but read aloud, the themes and insights were revealed.
I have attended a reading by the author, so as best I could, I tried to imitate his delivery. Not easy to do as he is a flawless transporter of his own words.
This collection absolutely must be read out-loud as the poet's beautiful use of beat, and contrasting assonance/consonance make the poems roll off one's tongue. I found that without standing and reading them, several poems went over my head, but read aloud, the themes and insights were revealed.
I have attended a reading by the author, so as best I could, I tried to imitate his delivery. Not easy to do as he is a flawless transporter of his own words.
April 30, 2016
May doesn't have one type of poem. They stray and vary. Letters/ poems to Detroit, sweet love poems for Tarfia (<3)...the mournful alongside the hopeful as Jamaal May does so well. He navigates the dark corners of the self with poems haunted by ruins juxtaposed with poems illuminated with marvel at this life.
A great collection following Hum.
A great collection following Hum.
June 9, 2016
I liked this so very much.
"and I still believe what matters most
is not where I bend
but where I am growing."
"and I still believe what matters most
is not where I bend
but where I am growing."
Read
June 9, 20164 stars. I don't think there's anything much more civilized than reading a beautiful and powerful collection of poems before breakfast. -Sarah
June 12, 2020
A gorgeous follow-up to his debut collection Hum. May explores his art even more fearlessly, and once again, Alice James Books provides a gorgeous layout and binding. A dazzling, devastating read.
November 5, 2022
I enjoyed reading these poems, but some of it was just an interesting combination of words.
July 8, 2020
Jamaal May’s “The Big Book of Exit Strategies” is an exercise in occupation — specifically, in occupying the thoughts and histories that occupy our bodies. In the first poem, “Ask Where I’ve Been,” May opens “Let fingers roam / the busy angles / of my shoulders. / Ask why skin dries / in rime-white patches, cracks / like a puddle stepped on. Ask / about the scars that interrupt / blacktop, a keloid on my bicep: this fogged window.” The body is the place. It is our setting, it is our touchstone, both static and alive the way every city is “built of laughter, / abandon, feathers, and drums.”
This volume of poetry explores the tension and similarities between perceived opposites (body and city, life and it’s wake, things that break and the hard surfaces that exploit (and celebrate?) their softness. This kinetic anthology lives in moments as large as the death of a loved one or a major life transition to ones as small as a bad day or a dare. It succeeds in encompassing a singular life and in so doing expands into something larger, all while maintaining its quiet intimacy.
If the book opens with the body as history, its final (and my personal favorite) poem, “And For My Last Trick,” closes on a soul learning to situate in the present, to define itself not by what it has endured, but in finding comfort in existence, all while cutting onions into a cast-iron: “The sizzling skillet, round and full / of what I’ve cried over to cut / is not metaphor for anything. / It is only delicious. / As all leaving things are.” A simple bookending with a lingering taste. This is a book — and a poet — to savor.
This volume of poetry explores the tension and similarities between perceived opposites (body and city, life and it’s wake, things that break and the hard surfaces that exploit (and celebrate?) their softness. This kinetic anthology lives in moments as large as the death of a loved one or a major life transition to ones as small as a bad day or a dare. It succeeds in encompassing a singular life and in so doing expands into something larger, all while maintaining its quiet intimacy.
If the book opens with the body as history, its final (and my personal favorite) poem, “And For My Last Trick,” closes on a soul learning to situate in the present, to define itself not by what it has endured, but in finding comfort in existence, all while cutting onions into a cast-iron: “The sizzling skillet, round and full / of what I’ve cried over to cut / is not metaphor for anything. / It is only delicious. / As all leaving things are.” A simple bookending with a lingering taste. This is a book — and a poet — to savor.
February 24, 2019
Good poetry has the power to change your understanding of and outlook on life. In The Big Book of Exit Strategies, Jamaal May accomplishes just that. He takes on heavy topics like gun violence, racism, war, mental illness, and even the future with astute observations and dark wit. I was especially impressed by May’s ability to connect personal matters (like a job) to a larger commentary on culture and society without it feeling forced. It’s rare to come across a modern poet who seamlessly weaves parts into a coherent whole without some of those parts feeling out of place. Read this collection and then read it again.
August 9, 2017
As with any poetry collection, there were days I picked this book up and couldn't comprehend a single line I was looking at, and then other days when I picked it up with my bookmark in the same exact spot and understood everything.
There's another reviewer here that said Jamaal May's poetry is meant to be read out loud and they're absolutely right.
There's another reviewer here that said Jamaal May's poetry is meant to be read out loud and they're absolutely right.
March 23, 2018
I really loved this book. His poems, and images were powerful and direct. His sense of imagination did not take me away from the world, but it helped root me more strongly in it. He said things that caused me to say “of course.” And they made me realize that though I said “of course,” I am often leaving unsaid what needs to be said. Poem after poem awakened me. They were great.
December 19, 2020
His prose is gorgeous. His imagery transports. The juxtaposition tickles and energizes. I can't think of another poetry collection I've ever read cover to cover. I tried to put it away last night and I couldn't stop myself until I finished. And then I started again right back at the beginning. Delightful.
January 8, 2018
Stumbled upon this at the library. There's a whole section of modern poets I didn't see before @_@. There are interesting twists of phrases and combinations and some stinging emotions in between in this collection.
January 3, 2022
Read this book if you like dark thoughts, honest truths, and most importantly poetry.
Jamaal May creates an exquisite compilation of raw truths, honest feelings, and humanity in this collection of poems. I love poetry and though I mostly read uplifting poems, I loved the darkness in this book. I read it in one sitting and know I will read again!
Jamaal May creates an exquisite compilation of raw truths, honest feelings, and humanity in this collection of poems. I love poetry and though I mostly read uplifting poems, I loved the darkness in this book. I read it in one sitting and know I will read again!
March 1, 2018
4.5/5 Stars
January 12, 2019
Poetry is not always for everybody. This was however something I could relate to and understand. I enjoyed it very much.
April 24, 2019
4/5
A wonderful poetry collection that will both tug at your heartstrings and send them singing.
A wonderful poetry collection that will both tug at your heartstrings and send them singing.
November 22, 2019
Jamaal certainly knows how to manipulate words. Great poet with a unique voice.
January 21, 2022
i really enjoy reading this
February 15, 2022
4 stars for the really good poems. There Are Birds Here, FBI Questioning During the 2009 Inauguration, and Megalophobia are some.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews