Description
- Kind: Perfectbound
- Pages: 88
- Language: English
- Date Published: July 19, 2026
- ISBN 978-1-962847-60-5
Praise
Of Irene Mitchell’s ten collections written over a period of twenty years, I can say, having read many of them, that Chronicles of an Antediluvian especially resonates in a classy, relatable style, with humor and rich music. Although Mitchell has spent decades as a poet, the only thing that dates her is her vast store of knowledge about how to think and speak like a poet in the world today. She writes about what it is to be alive during each period of the life she chronicles, particularly the “authentic” present. Her poems draw us into new realms through her keen eye and tuned ear. A poetic rendition of memory and visions is her internalized domain. The poems in this collection are presented in segments which Mitchell has designated (using her own new terminology) as past, present, future. They are a singular repository for her meditations. In each of the uniquely constructed sections of the book are poems which are the topping on the cake, words coming to us like “axe-blows”, especially powerful in phrases using a string of one-syllable words:
Leaves fond of home hold on.
…would that boy dip that girl/
Yes, thoughts can mow one down/
The star plunged/ toward a rack of trees.
Mitchell’s domain is linguistic, cognitive, physical. As the poet says in the penultimate poem of this stellar collection, taste and see.
—Carolyn Rhodes Author of Library Girls of New York and The Seasons of Thomas C. Smith, Fashion Icon
Ranging over and through the world of the imagination, gathering details, and illuminating the poetic high ground found between the unfathomable and the understood is no mean feat…. Irene Mitchell leads us along the ancient paths of mood and metaphor finding, of all things, a wry, contemplative vision of harmony.
—Dennis Daly Author of Psalms Composed in Utter Darkness , Shield Wall and others
Excerpt
In Truth
The star plunged
toward a rack of trees
but as this trick was unbelievable
no one acknowledged it
although it was true as day.
It is hard to tolerate skepticism
when to simply adjust the blinders
is to verify.
That star did go down
like a swimmer to a plunge pool,
the very act adored for its courage.
Je t’adore, plummeting star,
although, in truth, your fickle glow is nothing
less than my heart
trading in little satisfactions.
Author
In addition to the present collection, Chronicles of an Antediluvian, Irene Mitchell is the author of nine other poetry books including An Overdose of Meditation (Dos Madres Press, 2024), and My Report from the Uwharries (Dos Madres Press, 2022). Mitchell’s Selected Poems, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2021. Dos Madres Press has published two other recent collections, Clerestory (2020), and Fever (2019).
Mitchell taught Writing, English, and English to Speakers of Other Languages in inner city and rural New York. She has conducted poetry workshops and served as judge in poetry competitions. Formerly poetry editor of Hudson River Art Magazine, Mitchell is known for her collaborations with visual artists and composers. Her poems were set to music for piano and voice in an art-song cycle entitled Past All Doors, which debuted in Stuyvesant, New York. Several of her poems have been executed as broadsides and exhibited ad hoc at regional galleries and libraries. Mitchell’s early correspondence with poetry editors and scholars is included in the final collection of The Aylesford Mss. archived at Indiana University’s Lilly Library. Mitchell was a recent Associate Artist in Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
