"Timothy Gager's latest book, Chief Strongbow is Real, is evidence of a new stage for the veteran poet and novelist. Before this book, Gager safely relied on his poetic insight into the struggle we all face, and his powerful phraseology; in this one, he stretches out into the worlds of politics and personality. His eye for the telling detail remains, but his work has become more expansive, more timely, and less hard-bitten. This is a mature poet showing us exactly what he's got: and it's good.
-Rusty Barnes, On Broad Sound and I Am Not Arie
Chief Jay Strongbow is Real
"The poems in Chief Jay Strongbow Is Real exist in liminal spaces. Timothy Gager realizes that like the actor who portrayed Strongbow, we are all 'fake…actor[s] within/the theater of our absurdity.' These poems aren’t afraid to rail against the world we find ourselves in, where if 'the cash is too good/right in our backyard, [we] sign the contracts/then set the tap water on fire.' These are poems that fight for truth and justice and love – whether we’re ready for them yet, or not.
~ Shaindel Beers, A Brief History of Time and The Children’s War and Other Poems
"These are diurnal animals prowling the midnight streets of his heart, searching for suburban morality, conscience, beauty, rawness, hope, and simplicity of time and being. When you read his work, you will be fetching him a bowl of milk made of love and fatigue and sobriety. The poems in this collection will drill quotidian sadness and nostalgia and hope into your left torso and make you dream of fabric softener and leggings and fertilizer."
~ Vi Khi Nao, Fish in Exile and The Old Philosopher