Dale Jacobson

Factories and Cities: a Poem in Two Parts Dale Jacobson

Factories and Cities, begun more than two decades ago, is a poem about America in conflictbetween the democratic and communal promise that ignited its original spirit and the dark psychological and economic realities that have come to burden not only many of its own people, but many of the wider world. It is a poem that explores the hungers and unfulfilled needs of the past for freedom, and perhaps identity, that haunt a nation propelled into a moment of world power to become a focus of humanity's historical struggles. Just saw your poems in Minneapolis magazine they are wonderful your images so clear and etched like Whitman write a lot write let the images pour we need these images they are a social communal vision... great prophetic visions of the people. - Meridel LeSueurJacobson has unusual gifts... He was the most brilliant student I have ever had... I am sure he will become one of the best poets in the country. - Thomas McGrathFactories and Cities embodies the venom and beauty that survived the ravages of what Elizabeth Bishop once called 'our worst century so far' and it does so with both venom and beauty to spare. - Floyce Alexander