In this collection of essays, talks, and reviews, Major Jackson revels in the work of poetry not only to limn and assess the intellectual and spiritual dimensions of poets, but to amplify the controversies and inner conflicts that define our age: political unrest, climate crises, the fallout from bewildering traumas, and the social function of the art of poetry itself. Accessible and critically minded, Jackson returns to the poem as an unparalleled source of linguistic pleasure that structures a multilayered “lyric self.” In his interviews, Jackson illustrates poetry’s distinct ability to mediate the inexplicable while foregrounding the possibilities of human song.

Collected over several decades, these essays find Jackson praising mythmaking in Frank Bidart and Ai’s poetry, expressing bafflement at the silence of white-identified poets in the cause of social and racial justice, unearthing the politics behind Gwendolyn Brooks’s Pulitzer Prize, and marveling at the “hallucinatory speed of thought” in a diverse range of poets including Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Brenda Hillman, Afaa Michael Weaver, Forrest Gander, and Terrance Hayes. This collection passionately surveys the radical shifts of the art and notes poetry as a necessity for a modern sensibility.

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"For teachers, it’s a unit-worthy syllabus of poets whose work intersects and mutually inspires throughout the last century, with discussion questions to boot. For scholars, it’s thoughtful research on poets like Countee Cullen and Lucille Clifton, a sharp-eyed breakdown of the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry award letter that made Gwendolyn Brooks the first Black woman recipient, and a short, persuasive thesis on the historical poem as a defining national genre. . . For critics, of course, it’s a giddy chance to catch a younger Jackson at our own task, writing low-key ekphrastics as he turns his metronome ear and poet’s tongue on someone else’s art."
—World Literature Today

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"The acclaimed poet explores the intellectual and spiritual elements of poetry and the social function of art through essays, interviews and notes."
—The New York Times

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"A Beat Beyond is a collection for the weary writer, for poets who feel themselves becoming invisible, and for any person who desires a liberation of language and lyric. With prose that transcends the bounds of mere musicality, Major Jackson invites us to investigate just how poetry ‘puts in an appearance.’ From the academy, to conversations in the grocery store, to churches, to hip-hop music, poetry is a sound guide that can lead us to the center of language."
—Kashif Andrew Graham, Chapter 16