Conjure Blues.

Jaki Shelton Green. Conjure Blues. Durham: Carolina Wren P, 1996. 93 pp. $10.95.

In his poem "Wise I" Amiri Baraka mentions the problems one can have if someone bans your "omwn bomm ba boom." Someone ban "your own boom ba boom you in deep deep trouble." Jaki Shelton Green restores our boom. In her collection Conjure Blues she protects us from loss and extends memory by practicing the rituals that are part of our blood and ancestry. This book is Southern in its heart and blackness. It is instructional in the manner of one's mother getting you ready for church. Black women, especially grandmothers, have a special place in Green's work. "i know the grandmother one had hands" is not an exceptional poem but instead a photograph of what we already know:

i know the grandmother one had hands

but they were always under

the cloth

pushing it along

helping it birth into

a skirt

a dress

curtains to lockout the

night

Jaki Shelton Green understands the importance of the woman story and spirit in a culture. Her work has deep roots in the earth. Green is Eva Tate's granddaughter being told secrets and remedies. "clearing skies" is filled with magic:

bring me flowers

from the eggplant 

nine eggs from

three pregnant doves

In Conjure Blues there are places where the language seems filled with the wrong measurements and ingredients. I have problems with the taste of phrase like warriors and wombpeople, and lines like "death is a five o'clock door / for ever change time," which is lifted from the end of Sister Son/ji, a 1969 play by Sonia Sanchez. Green pastes Sanchez's words in her own "declaration of peace / a time of thankful praise," and the effect is similar to that of bad sampling by a rap artist.

Reading Folk Beliefs of The Southern Negro by Newbell Puckett or the novels of Tina Ansa will let one sit at the table with Green's poetry. Maybe she was born with a veil, giving her a sixth sense and the gift to write a wonderful poem like "that boy from georgia is coming through here." This is the gem in the collection. The poem is about Martin Luther King, Jr., black love, religion, old people who are keepers of the faith, and the sacrifices made by the women in a community. Green has written a gumbo of a poem, and each reading brings new meaning. In her poem, King the Civil Rights leader is just a boy called Martin coming to town:

word was given Sunday

that you was coming

to their corner

so they swept dirt yards

put the chickens up

hung out the special quilt

Jaki Shelton Green is a poet in possession of herbal wonders. Only a few poems could be buried without a hymn. One is "things break down," and maybe others are "apartheid," "praise song," and "imani." One can overlook this because of poems like "auction block," in which Green returns to the theme of slavery and "conjures" something insightful and energetic, moving the reader into the realm of historical compassion and soul-felt anger. Green weaves together race and gender and explores the exploitation of the black woman reduced to sexual integer:

aunt sue spread legs wide

as six white men stepped forward to bid

on this hole

a hole that will soon suck them up into

its darkness

a darkness as wide as deep as her geography

It's important for the African American to be reminded of geography and place, especially the hidden emotional landscape. What I like about Green's poetry is how her words sometimes pull me outside my eyes. It encourages me to discover a new way of seeing, a way of being comfortable, even in the dark. Any poet who can do this has the power to conjure. Jaki Shelton Green just might leave a little goober dust on your doorstep. She is a writer who deserves watching.