In Chronicles of an Antediluvian, a tangle of personal touchstones, when examined in a certain light, become uniquely unspooled in the poet's mind, smoother, finally, for having moved through the paces of a life, a long life which has been, in retrospect, fuller than could have been imagined.
In addition to yearnings still blowing in the heather, actual occurrences contributed to the poetry presented here. Having ruminated, extrapolated and speculated, the poet has recalled her life as the daughter of Mitchell Wojt who was born in Chicago. That Mitchell, the same who saved a man from drowning in Lake Michigan, taught his daughter to swim and to complete her missions. He introduced her, in those early days, to poetry by extensively quoting Longfellow. Thereafter, the poet searched libraries for more. This task was made easier, since her father's position in a New York City library came with an apartment on the top floor of a branch on the lower east side. Literally hundreds of hours over a decade were spent reading down the shelves there. This practice was repeated over ensuing years in the stacks of the poet's attended university libraries, an endeavor which gave her a solid background in centuries of poetry to the modern day, which is to say, a background in poems read, read aloud, studied, memorized, mastered.
Each time period chronicled in the poet's new collection reveals her logical progression in terms of time, being now "mid-way upon the journey of [her] life", each time period authenticating and augmenting a view from the metaphoric window which allows her to pivot artistically in any chosen direction based on her knowledge of poetic devices and lyric tone.
Mitchell's poetry is layered and contemplative, sometimes Dantesque, often ending with a surprising statement, usually a line or two elucidating a transformative moment during which the poet, in the company of the reader, comes to terms with Beauty, Clarity, the magnificence of life, even Death as defined in Saul Bellow's Humbolt's Gift: "Death is the dark background a mirror needs if we are to see anything." Keeping these forces in balance is the realization that the power of the soul, the poet's inner voice, can be expressed through the well-wrought lyric which the poet has a mission to complete and deliver. In this collection, she acts formally as "transducer", a bridge of energy between the poet's physical world and the reader's sensitivity.
Under this aegis, the poems take shape. They transpire in mood and thought from the idyllic past to the conditional present, to the shifting tectonic plates of the imagined future. The poet considers herself a member of society in good standing until one day soon, facts with solutions/ will surface and work begin again. Mitchell has offered this work to the reader as a form of energy that may be useful in a certain light.
About the 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.
Review :
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
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
