Jumping the Median

D. E. Green’s words meander through time, uncovering the secrets of ancestors, rejoicing in the illusions of youth, exposing the frailty of victory, and relaxing in the humor of defeat. Jumping the Median is a book that leaps over the barriers between trust and grief, longing and satisfaction, life and death. It is a collection of poems that will linger in the soul of the reader.

—Cass Dalglish, Nin and Humming the Blues

In Jumping the Median, D. E. Green, like a medieval troubadour, lights up the dark corners of our quotidian life, those places we often ignore at our own peril. In poems of both formal verse, such as sonnets and sestinas, and in free verse, he excavates a deep vein with great skill and finesse as he journeys along the path, illuminating the love and joy and richness he finds in the shadows.

—Cary Waterman, Threshold: New and Selected Poems

There is so much to love in this dazzling collection of poems from D. E. Green. As the poet whizzes past road signs, lazes under maple trees, navigates office politics, and glides past the pool lifeguard, readers will thrill at moving in and out of these at once familiar and unfamiliar worlds. Brimming with lyrical language and keen insight, Jumping the Median is a must-read for both newcomers and long-time fans of Green’s work.

—John S. Garrison, Associate Professor of English, Grinnell College

D. E. Green is a learned poet, but he wears his learning lightly, leavening it with humor and deep sympathy for the human condition. He can riff on Prufrock or meditate on the fractured history and broken politics of several countries, then provoke sudden laughter with perfectly placed humor, and make us turn to look at ourselves both more critically and with more compassion. He writes from a place where we jump the median into the oncoming traffic, but manage to escape from the wreckage and dance ourselves back to wholeness.

—Rob Hardy, Poet Laureate of Northfield, Minnesota, Author of Domestication: Collected Poems 1996-2016

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D. E. (Doug) Green teaches literature, creative writing, composition, and gender and queer studies at Augsburg University. He has published many articles on Shakespeare, regular reviews of productions for Shakespeare Bulletin, general-interest essays, and poetry. His poem “Gratitude” won the 2017 Martin Lake Journal Bookend Prize. His poems also appear on the sidewalks of Northfield, MN, where he lives with his spouse, writer Becky Boling. Doug likes to say that he has been an occasional poet for over thirty-five years.