Didi Jackson‘s book of poetry, Moon Jar, was released on April 21 — the day before her 50th birthday and during a global pandemic. The book contains several years’ worth of poems about Jackson’s late husband, who died by suicide in 2011. Though many of the poems had been published previously, Jackson said it was emotionally intense to see them emerge into the world in book form.
“The whole day, I just cried,” Jackson said. “I cried for what we were going through in the country, all these deaths. Also one of the things I was really afraid of was, I didn’t want to add to the pain and suffering of the world. I didn’t want my book to add to that.”