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Taking its title and prevailing
metaphor from a faux-native wrestler who was “arguably the biggest
racist gimmick in history,” Timothy Gager’s new collection, Chief
Jay Strongbow is Real, sets out to debunk our tidy, comfortable
myths and cut through romantic and cultural illusions. The book is
set in eight “Acts” that take on loaded topics like politics,
addiction and sobriety, love and its demise, family, and poetry
itself.
The collection’s introduction and
opening poems indict the actions of those currently in power (“sign
the contracts / then set the tap water on fire”), but he’s
equally allergic to simplistic or idealistic solutions from the other
side:
The most radical
revolutions
Become conservative
The day after the
revolution
(“Me Thinks we
Protest”)
Gager’s poems are
disruptive and clever, full of his characteristic wordplay: “What
doesn’t kill you makes you thinner,” “as a fly crows,” and,
most light-heartedly:
You know you slay
me
so what?
I have dragon
breath
(“Loose
Flowers”)
Gager is also bold
and funny in his skewering of consumer culture (seventies style):
Take Sominex
tonight and sleep
after Coke and a
smile
is how you spell
relief
(“I Feel Good
About Amerika”)
The collection
punctures the balloon of romance and easy intimacy (“this / dating
is either gaga or nothing”) but still allows for the hope of deep
connection “like a worn t-shirt / is a perfect imperfection.”
Silly posturing is off the table here, but love remains a comfort.
In a world of
counterfeits, compromise, disappointment and disgust (which extends
even to the self: “today at the beach, my patience / vanished like
waves taking turns”), the clearest story to tell may be of the
adolescent hollowness that cannot be assuaged. Hunger, at least, is
true, and memory doesn’t soften it.
At age sixteen, a
hundred and forty pounds
An empty pit, my
ribs stuck out like a step ladder
My toothpick arms
with bulbous hinges
I think it
impossible to fill my stomach
(“When I Think
of my Childhood”)
With its distrust of
smug certainties and empty nostalgia, Chief Jay Strongbow is Real
might help us sharpen our own gaze, see more clearly, and act simply
and boldly: “Cook a meal. / Plant a garden.” If there’s a
message here, it is to look for truth and to persist. “By no means
stop.”
--Laura Cherry
--Laura Cherry
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