Jackson Pollock

Book excerpt: Jackson Pollock: Memories Arrested in Space is Martin Gray’s remarkable biographical poem on the life of the dynamic and controversial American painter. The narrative chronicles the reckless, adventurous, and often desperate life of the twentieth century’s most pivotal American artist, from his beginnings in the American northwest through his pioneering of a revolutionary new painting technique that came to be known as Abstract Expressionism to his death at the wheel of a car on Long Island when he was only 44 years old. Written entirely in iambic trimeter (the same meter that Gray used to write about Charlie Parker’s life and work in his internationally acclaimed Blues for Bird), Gray’s biographical poem runs more than 3,000 lines. In Jackson Pollock: Memories Arrested in Space, Gray captures the essence of the brilliant yet tortured artist in language that reflects a Pollock painting: spontaneous, beautiful, and haunting, with bursts of energy that touch the soul and make it soar. Art and poetry lovers alike will rejoice in Gray’s homage to a true American icon.