Prose. Poems. A Novel.
Iredell s work skirts many boundaries and traditions: poetry, prose, and the European traditions of the bildungsroman and ennui. But it avoids each of these, if ever so slightly, and marches out on its own. The poems are not coming from a tradition because no tradition is the American tradition. The poems might recall traditions, but Iredell is not using these trappings to tell his story. Instead, he is telling his own singular story, creating his own specific tradition and genre as his story unfolds through this series of poems. A singular, American story. A singular, American poem. --Quarterly ConversationThose expecting a novel, don't go into it with those eyes, go into it expecting an in-the-moment meditation on people and circumstances without context and you'll be much more satisfied. I'm against genres and classifications anyway, for the most part, and I think Iredell is too, except I don't want to speak for him, so I won't except to say, if you find yourself an opportunity to read this slim volume of goodness, I would do it. --Deck FightJamie Iredell s Prose. Poems. a Novel. (2009) consists of the author s previous chapbooks Before I Moved to Nevada (Publishing Genius Press), When I Moved to Nevada (Greying Ghost Press), and When I Moved to Atlanta (Paper Hero Press) conveniently combined in a 108-page volume, recently published by Chicago-rooted Orange Alert Press. Arguably, other than the fact that Larry, the narrator, is growing out of football and heavily into drugs and alcohol, PPaN contains no stated, overarching plot and it doesn t need one, because the reader, as casual observer of the events therein, will be pleased with the engaging, place-based vignettes that make up the book as a whole. What s most impressive is the language the verbs and phrases Iredell skillfully utilizes such as sharks missile-cruise the forested kelp for seals (23), its post gonging our noggins (25), desiccated scoreboard flag wiggled atop an Impala that doughnutted the fifty-yard line (27), and many, many more instances of finely tuned prosetry. Also notable is the characterization, because the characters are vivid and believable, yet sparsely described. For example, When it fired, a tiny Hiroshima cauliflowered in the air and its target disintegrated. Bob laughed and said, I love killing sh*t (55). And it wouldn t be wise for him to dwell on any one character too long, because they often exit as quickly as they (re)enter. Occasionally Iredell will drift into telling when he could be showing, but this practice results in little consequence here. Christy Call s art adds to the overall presentation, but several pieces the black bear on 18, the buck on 40, and the .357 on 56 and 57 outshine the others. Still, personal preference aside, the visuals are a welcome element, even if some feel tacked onto page bottoms when they could ve been integrated in a different manner. While Iredell s latest is light on a traditional, tension-filled plot I love me a good plot it s an overwhelming success that I find completely engrossing. Highly recommended. --decomP