Jack Marshall



Jack Marshall (born 1936 in Brooklyn, United States) is an award-winning American poet and author born

Youth
Marshall was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to an Iraqi father and a Syrian mother of Jewish heritage. He grew up speaking Arabic in a Sephardic Jewish household, ruled by traditional Arab Jewish culture. He attended public school as well as a Hebrew school in his neighbourhood.

Career
He is the author of numerous books and poems which reflect and explore his cultural heritage. Two examples, Baghdad to Brooklyn: Growing Up in a Jewish-Arabic Family in Midcentury America, along with Millennium Fever:Poems, proved very successful.

Personal life
Jack discovered his love for literature at the New York Public Library, where he used to attend night classes in poetry with poets Robert Lowell and Stanley Kunitz. He cites History, Geography and Literature as the subjects he is interested in.

He currently resides in the Bay Area.

Recognition
Marshall was awarded the PEN West Award and was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, for From Baghdad to Brooklyn. He was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 2008.

Publications

 * The Darkest Continent. For Now Press, 1967.
 * Bearings. Harper & Row, 1970.
 * Floats. Cedar Creek Press, 1971.
 * Bits of Thirst. Blue Wind Press, 1976.
 * Arriving on the Playing Fields of Paradise. Jazz Press, 1983.
 * Arabian Nights. Coffee House Press, 1987.
 * Sesame. Coffee House Press, 1993.
 * Millennium Fever. Coffee House Press, 1996.
 * Chaos Comics. Pennywhistle Press, 1994.
 * Gorgeous Chaos: New & selected poems. Coffee House Press, 2002.
 * From Baghdad to Brooklyn Coffee House Press, 2005. ISBN 978-1-56689-174-5

External references

 * An Active Anthology, frankshome.org


 * Audio / video
 * From Baghdad to Brooklyn