Jackleg Opera: Collected Poems, 1990 to 2013

Praise

“And like all great poets, Ward lays bare his soul.”
—Jacqueline Cutler, journalist and book reviewer for NJ.com

“A new voice: welcome it. BJ Ward’s, with a new idiom, new accents, new rhythms. Speaking to and for a new generation.… This is where it’s at now, he says, and he’s right. Singing and squawking. It’s beautiful to hear, encouraging to see.”
—Hayden Carruth, award-winning poet and literary critic

“In the chaos of my library I have my top book shelf of about thirty books of contemporary poets that I find jumpstart me when I have trouble writing. This book is on there. BJ Ward is part of my generation of poets (born in 1965 or after), but he has somehow fallen through the seams. He should be present in the canon forming anthologies but isn’t. This is a shame … The honest and seemingly simple texture and metaphor of his poems offer us much to help us live our lives.”
—Sean Thomas Dougherty, poet and author of nine books including Nightshift Belonging to Lorca

“In poems that both honor and transcend his blue collar roots, BJ Ward blends poignancy and humor with downright good story telling, and takes his place among the bright up-and-coming voices of his generation.”
—Stephen Dunn, poet and author of Different Hours, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

“BJ Ward knows about keeping the soul’s song alive against the things that hold down the sons of the world, including the sons who must forgive and the fathers who must reinvent themselves. These poems ache with the love of women, a delight in language, and a surety that self can be soldered out of the rebar and remnants of a closely observed internal landscape, one colored not so much with elegy, but ‘what might be called generosity.’ These poems have a humor that can be owned only after close attention to pain, giving way to a kind of heroic grace.” 
—Laura McCullough, poet and author of Panic, winner of the Kinereth Gensler Award