The author's poetry is praised by Morton Marcus, The Library Journal, Poetry Magazine, Choice Magazine...

Arriving on the Playing Fields of Paradise

Literature & Fiction

Marshall, Jack

Poetry

Jazz Pr

1994 National Book Critic's Circle Award for Poetry nominee and winner of the PEN Center USA/West Literary Award for Poetry, 1994. "Marshall's . . . meticulously selected words hit their target dead center while readers are still caught up in the atmosphere he so beautifully paints."--Publishers Weekly¶"Highly recommended."--Library Journal

Sesame

Coffee House Press

From a critically acclaimed poet, politically and environmentally hot poems for the next millennium.

Millennium Fever

In this vital collection of new and selected work, Jack Marshall never lets readers forget that they are meat-on-the-bone, organic beings incomplete in nature, often rattled by the tricky fortune of possessing free will and consciousness. With voice steady and language sublime, Marshall imparts a studied view of being alive and the possibilities that abound before, during, and after our earthly tryst as -psyche meeting flesh.
Jack Marshall was born in 1936 to Arabic-Jewish parents, and often mines these clashing cultures in his work. His critically acclaimed books include Sesame, a PEN West Literary winner and National Book Critics Circle finalist. He lives in San Francisco, California.

Gorgeous Chaos: New and Selected Poems: 1965-2001

“[Marshall] understands that the neighborhoods and cities that no longer exist can be conjured by memory and reanimated by art.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Born in Brooklyn of Arabic/Jewish heritage, Marshall may represent the keynote, most critical multicultural mixture of our time.”—Naomi Shihab Nye, Hungry Mind Review
Inspired by the posthumous discovery of letters written by his father but never mailed, Jack Marshall’s memoir is both a moving story of a writer’s artistic coming-of-age and a lush, lyrical recollection of a childhood spent in Brooklyn’s Arabic-speaking Jewish community. Born in 1936 to an Iraqi father and Syrian mother who had immigrated to the United States, Marshall grew up in the hardworking Sephardic community—enveloped in an extended family that spoke little English, no Yiddish, and whose way of life owed more to their Middle Eastern homelands than to European Jewish traditions.
As the sights, sounds, and tastes of midcentury New York leap off the page, Marshall beautifully evokes the magic of youth and discovery. From playing “running bases” in the Brooklyn streets to making egg creams at Coney Island, from his mother’s rich kibbeh and baklava to the vast world revealed in the books of the New York Public Library, from the pleasures of music to the mysteries contained under a microscope, Marshall’s story is as enduring as it is original. And before he sets sail for Africa as a seaman on a Norwegian freighter, Marshall has, through his negotiation of language, culture, family strife, and issues of education, faith, and politics, shined a light upon the possibilities of our collective future.
A critically acclaimed poet, Jack Marshall has received a PEN Center USA West Award, two Bay Area Book Reviewers awards, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

From Baghdad to Brooklyn: Growing Up in a Jewish-Arabic Family in Midcentury America

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

“Marshall’s canvases, expansive as Jackson Pollock paintings, comprehend every thing from string beans to string theory.”—Poetry
Soulfully introspective and viscerally engaged, Jack Marshall’s poetry weds timely depictions of Middle Eastern widows “behind veils heavy / as the steel / veil of empire” with timeless expressions of personal grief and political outrage. Invoking visionary possibilities of being while “riding unsteadily on the rails / of rhyme,” Marshall’s distinctive voice and elegant lyrics unite this muscled, multilayered collection.
Born in 1936 to Jewish parents who emigrated from Iraq and Syria, Jack Marshall grew up in New York and now lives in California. He is the author of the memoir From Baghdad to Brooklyn and several award-winning poetry collections.

The Steel Veil

Praise for Jack Marshall:
"[Marshall] understands that all worlds, the material and the spiritual, are one, and that the neighborhoods and cities that no longer exist can be conjured by memory and reanimated by art."—San Francisco Chronicle
From "Spiral Trace":
Only on the way down does the sun make my day, as in a grove of trees, a stroll will smell of pharmacy eucalyptus, sage, menthol.
Born in Brooklyn to Jewish parents who emigrated from Iraq and Syria, Jack Marshall's poetry has received the PEN Center USA Award, two Northern California Book Awards, and a finalist nomination from the National Book Critics Circle.

Spiral Trace

Jack Marshall draws linkages between past, present, and future to advocate for appreciating what we have, and being better stewards of it.
From Birth took the bait”: Beaks of birds who earthward break their songs, in drought soar to clouds for a drink, 
a sip of what earth doesn’t offer anymore, and summer vanishes, like a stain that was once a shore.
Born in Brooklyn to Jewish parents who emigrated from Iraq and Syria, Marshall has received the PEN Center USA Award, two Northern California Book Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a nomination from the National Book Critics Circle.

Fugitive, in Full View

Self-Help

Relationships

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Marshall, Jack. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Marshall, Jack

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Marshall, Jack. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Arriving on the Playing Fields of Paradise

Arriving on the Playing Fields of Paradise

Sesame

Millennium Fever

Gorgeous Chaos: New and Selected Poems: 1965-2001

From Baghdad to Brooklyn: Growing Up in a Jewish-Arabic Family in Midcentury America

The Steel Veil

Spiral Trace

Fugitive, in Full View