BJ Ward, an award-winning poet whose poetry and essays have been featured on National Public Radio and in publications such as The Sun Magazine, TriQuarterly, The Literary Review, and the New York Times, has brought together in one volume the fruits of his labor spanning over twenty years. A rich collection of thoughtful and often ironic reflections that reveal both the reverence and irreverence of human experience, Jackleg Opera contains the material from his three previous books Landing in New Jersey with Soft Hands, 17 Love Poems with No Despair, and Gravedigger’s Birthday as well as thirty-five new poems that are reminiscent of the clear simple style of Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Under the Elm e left the party, walked / beneath a moon that seemed / more a spotlight than night, / until we found a tree. / We pressed against it / and the grass rose against us, / the sky continued to darken, / and soon days, weeks, migrations, / and metamorphoses passed / as we kissed ourselves out / of our bored lives. / Us–two thousand miles away now, / the grass still growing wild around our feet.

In poems that both honor and transcend his blue-