Description
- Kind: Perfectbound
- Pages: 86
- Language: English
- Date Published: November, 2022
- ISBN: 978-1-953252-69-2
Praise
With grace and depth, Irene Mitchell writes toward the largest subjects. I was smitten— and impressed— by her delicate and profound lyrics, which seem Dickensonian in their slant truths and surprising language, their tonal complexities and unsettling charms….but mostly, these beautiful ontological poems consider what it is to be alive. In addition to such soulful gravity, there’s insouciance and humor. —Alice Fulton, poet
I fell for Mitchell’s poems the first time I read them. Never showy but rich, curious, and fathomless, her singular view and mysterious style make a perfect day: clear, timeless, precious, curious. That is to say, to read her poems is to be taken over by her evident trust in the sounds, absences, and complex, surprising meanings of her words. Reading Mitchell, one feels there is no place she cannot reach. Her delicious but rollicking language, keen attention to sound, subtle hunger, and masterful craft attest to her intuitive trust in how her poems make music, mischief, and meaning. She is a visionary. She beckons the way to a luscious secret path. Marcia Ross, editor & author of Layla and the Lake
Irene Mitchell translates complex emotional states into poetic metaphor with just enough abstraction to invite thoughtful contemplation.…She creates a lens through which to bear witness to the beauty in the mundane, and examines the power of the meditative act of being present for the experience of life. —Monica J. Brown, Interdisciplinary artist exploring memory, history and personal mythology
Each poem is a shimmering invitation to a mysterious journey of resignation, joy, introspection and wonder. Mitchell’s themes focus on the precious inevitability of each moment and its transitory nature, guiding readers on their own journey through a profound labyrinth of self-discovery. —Alex Balogh, author of And Yet and Accidental Destination
Excerpt
Passerby
I have entered my tallies
and made amends,
abundantly fortified
by this diligence
for a lone wandering
during which I would pit the day against
the night, as is my right and duty.
At no time will I scorn the crows.
As everyone knows, they remember
that you have just passed by
and that it is you just now returning.
Author
Irene Mitchell is the author of seven poetry collections. Her 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 and English in inner city and rural New York where she now lives. 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 at Requa House in Stuyvesant, New York. Several of her poems have been executed as broadsides and exhibited ad hoc at local galleries and libraries.
Mitchell’s early correspondence with poetry editors and scholars is included in the final year’s 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.
