Everybody's Vaguely Familiar (Paperback or Softback)

Jack Powers is attuned to twists of life and language—insults refitted as endearments, families defined by their troubles, great care taken with modes of recklessness . . . . Near the start of his debut collection, he’s praising the massive coronary, favoring it over the dwindling disease and dementia that took his elders. But as mortality hovers, he teases, testing wits and teasing out the good stories of lucky close calls, game grandmothers, swearing babies, and a wry mother. . . . Pretty soon, he’s against the quick demise—“and the sky seemed full/ of answers, some hurtling/ like arrows into the future.” --Amy Holman

In Amy Holman's words we find the essence of Jack Powers' Everybody's Vaguely Familiar. His "twists of life and language," are like the twists of code in a strand of dna. They replicate, as much as is possible, both what we have in common and what distinguishes us. Why, this collection asks, why does everybody seem vaguely familiar? How do we relate to one another as children, as adults, as elders? Whose perspectives are most convincing--and why? How replicable/reliable are the symbols we use to code "I'm the coolest" or "Neither life nor death can frighten me"?

Powers' poems, taken together, describe a full arc of living. In "Carry/Miscarry" we grieve the loss of "a not-yet being with thin veiny arms and legs and head," and in "Do Not Resuscitate," we're reminded that, though "the elderly score highest on happiness polls," it may be "just those who can answer the phone." "In Praise of Heart Attacks" morphs into "In Fear of Heart Attacks," yes, but neither is the final word. Life and language twist into a double helix of questions, which Powers' persona untangles and tangles again. In "Smokin' A Real Cool Brank," he traces a history with cigarettes from age 10 to age 29, balancing the pleasures and perils of tobacco; in "The God of Stupidity," we vicariously experience the crazy freedom of teenaged joyrides--though this poem and others also hint at something potentially destructive in that freedom.

About a quarter of the poems deal with elderly dementia, though usually with a generous dose of affectionate and respectful whimsy. Take these lines from "He Couldn't Remember." "He Couldn't Remember/ why he got up, why he'd come upstairs/ . . . But then it never mattered/ what he'd been looking for anyway,/ it’s what he'd found. Like this paisley-moted/ shaft of afternoon light bending/ through the dusty panes; a yellow spotlight/ like one from that thirties painter famous/ for lonely men in a night-lit diner."

Everybody's Vaguely Familiar is ultimately a joyous collection. Jack Powers' voice is fully human.

Jack Powers powerful debut collection, Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar, grapples with existential questions of death, illness, and love. Yet it is one of the most life-affirming collections I have read. Powers’ precision of language, his enormous empathy, and his razor-sharp sense of humor allow him to walk the treacherous tightrope of sentiment without ever falling into the abyss of sentimentality. He makes the reader care passionately about the quotidian troubles of his characters. Powers' command of language and his unique voice offer a profound and affecting glimpse of dashed dreams; boyhood exploits; a miscarriage; dementia; deaths of parents, students, friends; and a unique brush with death at age twenty-nine. The persona is as nuanced as the characters in a novel. This collection lives at the intersection between the dueling world-views of the book— “In Praise of Heart Attacks” and “In Fear of Heart Attacks.” While reading this engaging collection, the reader ultimately understands that despite the arguments Powers posits in favor of a swift and painless death, life with all its disappointments and heartaches is undeniably gratifying. This book reminds me how grateful I am to be alive.

 --Jennifer Franklin

The poems in Jack Powers' debut collection Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar are as human as it gets, maneuvering through the emotional landscape of life with wit, a no-nonsense clarity and a touch of sarcasm. These poems are immediate . . . as if each one is talking specifically to you, the reader, creating a bridge of instant friendship. So when Powers explores fatherhood, the death of a parent, or how we can get the most out of the time we do have, these poems offer a past, present and most importantly a future. So read this collection and celebrate what it really means to be alive.

--Kevin Pilkington

Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar is a funny and poignant ride through the vivid details of our everyday lives. From adolescent smoking to philtrum guards to a miscarriage, Powers captures a male voice in search of what it all adds up to—if anything. In this carefully observant collection, he appears to suggest that even though we fail the ones we love and death claims us all, the struggle is worth it, especially when family shares it with us: “I will.../ remember a beach in Rhodes// where stars littered the sky/ like luminescent river stones/ so close// we could pluck them/from the heavens,/ offer them to each other....” Powers’ book shows us how to “wish for more.”

--Laurel Peterson

I love Jack Powers’ light touch and deep vision.  Everyone’s Vaguely Familiar is brilliant, humanistic, quick-witted and fast-paced—but the cameos of family, high school, pop icons and suburbia open seamlessly onto the sacred ground of tragedy: mortality, suffering, how we create ourselves out of nothing and are undone. In “Smokin' A Real Cool Brand,” Powers’ zinging lines arrive at an epiphany--"an acute awareness of my good fortune”--but that’s not where the poem ends: it ends in the human predicament: illusion, desire, cussedness, our need to flirt with disaster. Everyone’s Vaguely Familiar is a book that will last.

--D. Nurkse