Review: Gates by Jay Green

A short but significant collection of ideas, memories, and imaginings are offered in the varied and expressive work of poetry, Gates by Jay Green.

The volume opens with a reflection on judging and condemning others, “Namesake.” The poet suggests that trust and forgiveness play a role in finding balance and “braving any distance” between people. “Sunset on the Bayou” paints the lovely perception that “Someone dropped ice cream on my Louisiana sky,” inviting him to relax and watch the celestial substance melt. An interesting take on writing is explored in “Penmanship” in which, as a child, Green tried to imagine himself writing laboriously with a feather quill, and now using a cellphone for artistic creation and wondering if “people back then could move their thumbs so fast.”

More humor is found combined with some of the poet’s authentic, African-American argot in works like “Peanut Butter,” “Slapbox” and “Grammar.” In the latter he references his military training: “Taming the tongue has been a task of mind since Uncle Sam scooped me from my home.” He grapples with the task of writing, suggesting in “If I Write a Poem” and “What Is a Poem” that the process of creation is like wrestling with a beast, inventing a vaccination, or holding a baby – “something I adore, yet am afraid of.” The poem, he opines, can be a psychologist with the lungs of a marathon runner, or as plain as morning breakfast.

Two emotive works underscore Green’s experience in the Marine Corps. “War Poet” is a reminder of the old days when soldiers composed works while in combat, perhaps, like him, “wondering if the right ammunition of thought will come.” PTSD seems a player in “Combat” as Green continues to battle an unseen enemy. He speaks plainly of racial challenges in “Neighborhood” – a drive through the “two story houses…with multiple cars in the elongated, circular driveways,” recalls his envy, his wish to live in such a neighborhood. But he can’t forget the color gap, the knowledge that in such places he would be watched, be suspect.

Green’s works comprise a variety of devices: some are factual, three-dimensional, such as a question asked (“What Is Love?”), an experience related (“Death and Scrolling”), a memory recounted (“Blues and Barbecue”). Others are more purely imaginary, like the fantasy of a young girl bathing, growing up, becoming a queen in “About a River” or the sad story of the boy in “Mirrors” who leaves home to live on the streets, growing into a man who shouts at passersby, “How could you do this to me!”

In fact, it is the variety of this collection that is most noteworthy and that draws us into the world of its creator. The eclectic nature of these pieces still form a unified whole, as there is a powerful emotional undercurrent throughout the collection, no matter how varied some of the subject matter may be. A self-described “Gen-Z poet,” Green marvels at the uses and abuses of cell phone consciousness, yet proves his detachment from that tech world again and again with works of simple, admirable imagery and energy that spring from mind and heart.

Given the variation of subjects and themes, each poem may not affect readers equally, but there is something here for every devoted reader of poetry. A stunningly diverse work, Gates establishes Jay Green as a poet of sensitivity, humor, and vision.