True Believer - by Jeff Kass (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"True Believer is Jeff Kass at his best: reflective and clobbery, nerdy and dynamic, witty and wise."--Adam Mansbach, author of Go the F*ck to Sleep and The Golem of Brooklyn

In True Believer, Jeff Kass intertwines fiction with reality as he delves into the origins of the Marvel superheroes, explores how the Marvel saga informed his own worldview, and implores us all to continue to believe in the forces of good

Through lyric and narrative poems, formal and informal verse, and even a trio of limericks, Kass's poems both retell classic comic book tales and recall his personal experiences being a True Believer--attending New York City Comic-Con with his childhood friends, wishing he could control the weather while coaching his son's baseball team, and growing up reading about the Jewishness of The Thing, the Golem-like member of The Fantastic Four, which impacted Kass's understanding of his own identity.

An ode to what Stan Lee called his devoted readers, True Believer is a call to arms and an invitation to discover the heroic in ourselves. If we can't be super-powered heroes, we can endeavor to be what those heroes embody: perseverance despite personal doubt, determination in the face of calamitous odds, and faith in the notion that humanity is worth saving.

Review Quotes

"Beyond the discussions of politics, religion, or Black Widow, this is what True Believer is really about: a little boy, reading a Captain America comic, and dreaming of things bigger than what is offered in the world we inhabit. Even this devout DC fan has to admire it."

--Mid-American Review

"If you ever wondered what a villanelle about supervillains would look like, then face front and read True Believer. Jeff Kass's collection of Marvel-themed poetry is obsessive and witty -- I regret only that he didn't find a rhyme for 'Excelsior'!"

--Gavin Edwards, co-author of MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios

"True Believer is Jeff Kass at his best: reflective and clobbery, nerdy and dynamic, witty and wise. In these poems history meets myth, the epic intertwines with the intimate, and nostalgia joins forces with imagination to seek out justice. Best of all, Jeff is clearly having fun here, and you will too."

--Adam Mansbach, author of Go the F*ck to Sleep and The Golem of Brooklyn

"In True Believer, Jeff Kass recasts figures from the Marvel universe into spirited ghazals, villanelles, odes, limericks, and sweeping lyric epics that interweave form with memory, power, dignity, reckoning, love. In each of these poems, Kass interrogates an ethics of care across geographies and timelines, moving across personal histories to the communal. These are glimmering poems that tackle the heroic, the collective, the comic, the intimate, the fantastical, the daily, the strange. I read this book cover-to-cover, entranced by these poems' sonic joys and glinting word-work, and deeply moved by this poet's unyielding attention towards the human and the humane. Undoubtedly, Jeff Kass is a poet to treasure--who teaches all of us what it means to live with magnificent heart, vibrant imagination, and the rigors of hope."

--Carlina Duan, author of Alien Miss

"As a person who knows, first hand, just how many people have been touched by Jeff Kass's pedagogy, poetry and personhood, it is a pleasure to encounter this collection which, at last, acknowledges the often over looked superpowers he possesses. In these poems there is so much praise for the overcoming of obstacles. There is so much respect for accountability and forgiveness, for justice and mercy. These poems honor the practice of hope, the everyday kindness, the sacrifice for community and the labor of growth. All these small acts are made mighty and heroic in Jeff's poems and it's the kind of work we need right now. In a world where problems can feel insurmountable, True Believer reminds us that no gift is too small to make a mark; reminds us that there's a hero in us all if we can find a way to trust in ourselves and each other."

--Lauren Whitehead, writer, performer, and professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts

"Kass will smash! In this clever, wise, and dare I say fun collection your soon-to-be-favorite poet-storyteller smashes Marvel superheroes against Jewish folklore against systemic American violence against masculinity--all with earnest grace. What at first glance appears to be a lighthearted poetry book about Marvel is actually an ambitious call for courageousness. Jeff Kass is a master web-weaver connecting seemingly disparate threads with dexterity, humor, and insight. Kass smashes limericks, ghazals, odes and "villainellas" against the irrepressible, crescendoing questions born of a boyhood sprawled on the carpet devouring comic book mythos. Kass smashes our preconceptions about what it takes to be a hero with Zen-dappled lyricism, "I believe a man / without fear is a man / who already knows / what fear feels like / and is willing to feel / it again." True Believer centers around heroes, both ordinary and fantastical. But it's love, not saviorism, that is at the center of these poems. I turned these pages expecting to see love donning a cape and washboard abs as it pulled the wounded from a burning building. Instead, I walk away feeling that love is how any one of us, at any moment, might rise into a private, extraordinary courage."

--Shira Erlichman, author of Odes to Lithium

"Jeff Kass's new collection uses the motif of the comic book hero and villain to ask the eternal questions of human experience. These poems are not the cardboard creations of an entertainment industry bereft of new ideas but rather they embody the thing that a great comic can: using the familiar structures of a well-trod story to interrogate the themes that animate us all. In particular, the long poems show a virtuosity in which the writer marries personal experience, comic book lore, biography, and history to open up new imaginative landscapes. These are poems worth their weight in Vibranium."

--Nate Marshall, author of Finna and Wild Hundreds

"Jeff Kass is a True Believer--and true believers know: the line between worlds is thin. These poems are love songs: to the hulking, colorful heroes of comic book lore, and to the plain-clothed Avengers among us--committed teachers, leaf blowers, cab drivers, tired parents, baseball coaches. But in true Kass form, these odes also whisper the gentlest kind of dare: But what's your origin story, friend?"

--Adam Falkner, author The Willies

"It's true I would read anything written by Jeff Kass. It's truer still, there is something altogether different about his latest collection. Like any childhood treasure tested by time, made bare by perspective, True Believer hits with high stakes. As vulnerable as it is epic, the book is abundant with opportunities for us to bask in the heart's nostalgic machinations. Searching and earnest, Kass can do it all, make a form playful, make free verse obedient. His Ghazals are rhythmic and agile and I was tapping my feet. I was shaking my head. His Daredevil Creed promised I believe my punches pack the power of my dead father and I was reading it out loud to make sure the room knew a book that will make us softer in the soul has arrived. What power for that boy / who wants to believe / in essential goodness. Kass is that boy; revealing 'belief' as a kind of calibration toward what is possible. Teaching us how to trust belief as North star, but not be fooled by the night sky that surrounds it. Be brave, the poems dare us. Be brave by studying the pain of your world. Timely and hard-earned, poems like these could have only sprung up from a lifetime of reading, from that particular devotion to stories, to characters that build character--each appearing with the length of their lore accompanying them. Through imaginative narrative, the poems allow for lore to amplify, but not obscure the flaws of the champion. They encourage us to be hopeful, but also be disabused of that youthful yearning for something to go wrong so that we might be the one to swoop in and fix it. Then they move us to the wiser understanding that nothing terrible is worth wishing for just to feel strong. Finally, they move us to the wisest discernment of all: most of life is movement far beyond our control, and the only real hero is the exuberant witness."

--Angel Nafis, author of Black Girl Mansion

About the Author

Jeff Kass teaches Tenth Grade English and Creative Writing in Ann Arbor MI. He's the award-winning author of Knuckleheads, 2011's Independent Publishers Best Short Fiction Collection of 2011 as well as two full-length poetry collections, My Beautiful Hook-nosed Beauty Queen Strut Wave and Teacher/Pizza Guy, a 2020 Michigan Notable Book. He has taught poetry classes and workshops to thousands of students and is a recipient of a prestigious 2023 Jack Hazard Fellowship for writers who teach in public schools.