"The magic of small lives lies is its vastness and plenitude. It is a testament to the ability of comic books to embody strong collective desires for justice and reveal deep truths about society...This experimental volume of poetry offers the pleasures of page-turning narrative in combination with the slow, multilayered density of individual poems. As such, it rewards multiple, three-dimensional readings."

– Ellen McGrath Smith

"Jackson pulls no punches; his allegory is crystal clear, but at the same time he isn’t heavy handed... Jackson’s innovation is in translating a plot-driven graphic medium into poetry, and poetry into something that can sustain book-length momentum."

– Dawn Macdonald, Heavy Feather Review

"small lives is a daring poetry collection that fuses comic book myths with searing truths, asking what it means to be seen in a world that’s determined to forget you."

– Foreword Reviews

“There’s a charmed and charged theater in Gary Jackson’s small lives that’s rare in contemporary poetry. At its center, this book is about power: who has it, how it twists, how it’s weaponized, how it’s abdicated. On its face, it’s a superhero story in the tradition of Moore’s The Watchmen. A welcome counterbalance to our thirty-second culture, small lives is a tender, gritty thriller that resists hopelessness.”

– Maya Marshall, author of All the Blood Involved in Love

“In small lives, Gary Jackson assembles an intricate universe and a compelling story of a team of black superhumans that discover their powers and themselves in a volatile and cynical world. With prose poems, erasure, and powerful storytelling, these poems blur genres and open your mind to witness amazing feats, the rise and fall of heroes, and maybe even a world saved from itself. Jackson has gifted us with a book that is focused, compassionate, and brimming with imagination.”

– Juan J. Morales, author of Dream of the Bird Tattoo: Poems and Sueñitos

“In Gary Jackson’s compelling third collection, we encounter a fable of sorts. And in the best of fables, the stories told from the perspectives of the Invincible Woman, the Telepath, and Willpower Man all share resonances with our pasts and present. Jackson’s skillful examination of the extraordinary as it mirrors the quotidian invites readers to wonder at the spectacle of supernatural beings who share the brightness of the sun while their interior lives are filled with intense doubt, fear, and hope. Jackson makes these small lives loom large and fierce, bringing all to gather around to watch miracles happen while also encouraging us to acknowledge the cost.”

– Oliver de la Paz, author of The Diaspora Sonnets