Atlanta by James Iredell

Reviewed by Eric Weinstein

Achilles Chapbook Series, January 2009

James Iredell’s Atlanta is a refreshing new collection of prose poems/short fictions; I am not generally a fan of prose poetry, but Iredell’s clear, honest voice and economic style make this compact volume a quick and pleasurable read.

Iredell owes much to T.S. Eliot, and knows it: “the chili-smothered tot steam rubbed its yellow back against my nose” borrows from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, in which Eliot describes “the yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes.” One of Iredell’s characters (also named Eliot) later “nurse[s] his bald spot,” a reference again to Prufrock, this time to the line “Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter.” Iredell later points to his own allusions, mentioning that “[Eliot’s] poet-father had named him for the guy whose Michelangelo-talking women came and went.”

The urban aesthetic at work in Iredell’s collection itself echoes Eliot, and modernism in general, pointing toward a sort of new incarnation of it, an inclination toward imagery (not all of it traditionally poetic or beautiful) that exalts the industrial and unembellished, life as it is and not as it is imagined. Atlanta may be read as a sort of new Prufrock, a youthful fear of aging in a world on the cusp of metamorphosis, a description of life and living as they existed at that time.

Although Atlanta’s loosely intertwined cast of characters—the narrator, a nine-fingered bartender, a lawyer girlfriend, and a tattooed son of a “poet-father,” to name a few—are often only spared a few lines each, Iredell succeeds admirably in crafting three-dimensional lives for them. I find this talent remarkably rare in contemporary prose poets/flash fiction writers, and I think it bears repeating: I am not generally drawn to this aesthetic, but Iredell has convinced me otherwise. I greatly look forward to reading his future work.

Visit the Achilles Chapbook Series on the web at http://www.achilleschapbook.blogspot.com/

Prick of the Spindle Poetry Editor Eric Weinstein recently graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with an AB in English and Philosophy. His writing has previously appeared in a variety of online and print publications, including The Archive,Wheelhouse Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, and Rainy Day. His poetry hasbeen nominated for inclusion in Pushcart Prize XXXIII: Best of the SmallPresses (2009). A native of New Hampshire, he currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

© 2009 prickofthespindle.com