Introduction: Jason Myers

In Rothko’s Seagram series, I could hear her, the whale swum up the Thames. But I cannot keep orchids and I want to give away the wind. Jason Myers has made America a mix-tape dubbed from a book she had made him out of poems he wrote to find her. A crane made of clay album, a rock shrimp with tarragon album. A thumbnail sketch, a jeweler’s stone—how a farmer stumbles on the terra cotta soldiers of an underworld, but already my heart was stray from yours. “Halloo halloo,” sings Grant Green, “golden rod and grass,” sings Richard Serra. The cider is about to turn and you must recognize, once more, that which surpasses all recognition. What Shakespeare might make of Hussein and the Bushes. How god pauses and passes on. A mix tape for the long drive out of the deep south, for being spun with joy and cold, for a city of ghosts & O the taste of all of her, America. America, like many affairs ours began in the backseat & I try to remember the meals we shared. Olive oil gelato with a pinch of salt? It is so hard to be true. Astonishment, reverence dubbed to a cassette for you to keep in your glove compartment, like Jonah in the belly of the whale up the Thames, gasping, waiting. Yes. Something tells me the eagle is a museum of wind. Yes. Halloo, halloo. Jason Myers.