“In this book, A. Van Jordan brings us what might be his most ambitious collection to date. Part- poetry, part-drama, part-interview, this is a book that defies easy categorization and yet uses that genrelessness to get to the heart of the American tradition of state violence against Black people. The book draws on a wide set of influences including Langston Hughes, Aimé Césaire, and William Shakespeare to build one of the most thoughtful poetic investigations of race and racism I have ever read. Jordan is one of the most masterful poets working today. This book is beautiful, affecting, and important.”

“For several books now, A. Van Jordan has been proving himself master of the dramatic monologue. His skill is especially dazzling in The Cineaste as he turns to cinema, that other realm of persona and projection. With an imagination illuminated by empathy, Jordan inhabits the eye of the camera, the eye of the actor, and the ‘I’ of a viewer tethered to image and history. These terrific poems give shape to lives made of light.”

“Drawn from his experience as a moviegoer, these poems prove anything but safe—each film is its own playground of dangers, of “strangers who mistake me for someone/ they owe.”

“Fearless hybridization.... Jordan creates spaces where physics and poetry, comic books and jazz, memory and loss, come together.”

“Multi-voiced and multi-faceted...captures an important figure who has been too long obscure. Memorable and haunting.”