Lee Chottiner's first collection utilizes both reflection and direct address to his boy uncle and namesake. This poetic journey rewards the reader with its imaginative depth, diversity of forms, and an editor's keen sense of language nuance.
-Michael Jackman, author, Letters from Spickert Knob
Talking to Irwin is a loving tribute to an uncle, the narrator's namesake, who died young, while also an exploration of the burden of the expectations that come from that inheritance. Part tribute, part meditation, it's a journey that leads inward to the triumph of one's unique self.
-Bill Brymer, 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee
Talking to Irwin by Lee Chottiner is a remarkable achievement: a deeply moving collection of poems based on the tragic circumstance of sharing his name, inverted, with an uncle killed in childhood. This is a legacy of confusion and psychological pain, rendered honestly. With sincerity and great skill, Chottiner confronts his strange history, and that of his family. This includes his grandmother, stricken with the initial loss, whose red hair turns white overnight, and his mother, born as a replacement, a spare, who owes her existence to the catastrophic event.
This is a poet whose writing is hard-hitting, direct yet filled with imaginative phrasing and great tenderness. He has been shaped by extraordinary circumstances, and he knows it. He is tasked with the urgent need to create something, anything that will serve as a memorial to his uncle, but along the way tells us how mortal he himself feels. In language that shimmers with clarity and intelligence, Lee Chottiner confronts issues of concern to all human beings: identity, mortality, legacy. What matters to him matters to us all - who we are, and what we leave behind. With the expertise of a lifelong writer, Lee Chottiner has given us a brilliant take on love, loss, responsibility, and the human condition. Bravo!
-Judith R. Robinson, winner, the Reuben Rose International Poetry Award, 2024
