On the Imperial Highway ― New and Selected Poems

“As a long-time admirer of Jack Anderson’s poetry, I am again impressed by his enduring mastery of the art. His latest collection reveals all his wit, his wayward charm, and the innocence that allows him his shocking honesty—qualities that have always marked his poems but are here even more sharply evident. With urban sophistication and the wide-eyed alertness of a child, he reports from the borders of sanity and beyond, in often-lurid tales that strangely make perfectly good sense. These poems are such fun to read, an antidote to the humorless profundities of our Great Thinkers and Poets, those pompous asses. Long live this mischievous imp of a poet, who replaces the baby Jesus in the church creche with a lecher of a garden gnome! I recommend this delightful poet to the world!”—Edward Field

This is Jack Anderson‘s tenth collection of poems. His previous books include The Invention of New Jersey, Field Trips on the Rapid Transit, and Traffic: New and Selected Prose Poems.A native of Milwaukee and a longtime resident of Manhattan, Anderson is also a well-known dance writer and critic, for The New York Times, Dancing Times (London) and New York Theatre-Wire, among others. He has written or edited seven books on dance, including The One and Only: The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Art Without Boundaries: The World of Modern Dance. He and George Dorris co-founded Dance Chronicle and co-edited it for 21 years.