Our milieu can be defined as our social environment; in this case, the titular location is most likely a reference to the USA in the 21st century. Nevertheless, MILIEU, the title of Jay Green’s book, could just as easily be alluding to Green’s immediate context as a microcosm for the world at large. Indeed, readers everywhere will readily relate to Green’s subject matter – many of his themes are inexorable, no what the individual’s personal milieu happens to be. Be that as it may, whether readers agree with the writer’s somewhat divisive perspectives on life – and at times they can read like a damning indictment – will depend very much on their own personal or political standpoint.
The author addresses the whole gamut of human narrative, from childhood experiences to our obsession with ‘isms’ and the supremacy of the ‘digital jungle’. Even specifics such as the pandemic-wrought lockdown and the George Floyd catastrophe do not escape his scrutiny. And he does so in verse that is terse and visceral – and always loaded with fervor. The poetry is interspersed with prose citations from a diverse range of heavyweight social commentators, including Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Winston Churchill, thus lending authoritative justification to Green’s own assertions. One such assertion is that ‘posterity will consider us monkeys’, a comment about social media that illuminates something of Green’s barbed view of popular culture.
The structure of MILIEU is loosely chronological and registers as a facsimile of autobiography. It commences with Green’s poetic rendering of childhood and school. At this juncture, the author employs a liberal sprinkling of repetition, cleverly mimicking the language and experience of this formative stage of life. Awareness of race clearly takes root and remains a subtle thread throughout the book. Green goes on to encompass topics that are inescapable for the politically aware individual: the scope of activism, the hypocrisies of political representation – he refers to ‘blue and red collars’ and ‘American tribalism’- and the lionizing of digital technology. He is particularly caustic about the impact of the ‘worldwide auditorium’ and our ‘[b]astardized ideals limited to 280 characters. The author readily name-drops from the argot of social media, mentioning the likes of TikTok and Reddit, confident that they will be received as a familiar component of readers’ vocabulary range. This, perhaps, is at the heart of the book’s message: Is it too late to salvage anything of value from this culture? And is Green’s use of poetry as a medium an attempt at doing exactly that?
MILIEU offers a thought-provoking, intelligent, and sometimes controversial panorama of what it’s like to live on this planet in the early 21st century. Whether readers empathize with or vehemently eschew the author’s sentiments, author Jay Green has a relevant voice that demands to be heard.
~Amanda Ellison for IndieReader