The Autobiography of a Jukebox [Paperback]

But in the political section of Eady's work (titled "Rodney King Blues"), Eady's technique collapses into polemics. In "Nobody's Fault But Mine" the speaker simply attacks the defense team's interpretation of the beating; Eady's political position is understandable, even admirable, but this is a subject best confronted head-on by the prosecution, not a poet. Nonetheless, Eady possesses quite a talent for descriptive narration. If there's a slow-spun, endearing quality to some of these poems, it is balanced by an equally charming use of the occasional cliche.

Eady uses words wonderfully in juxtaposition. For example, in "Anger" "spin doctors do their stuff" and the "op ed page" appears, as does "haughty anger" and a "dark sunglassed angel repository". Common speech coexists with poetic diction; I enjoyed this very much and would strive for it in my own work for the sake of the variety and shock value it lends the poems. Eady's poems, especially the prose-poem-like ones, are written as if the speaker is just talking to the reader, telling stories of family, pain, music and lyric, love, even his hair. I really enjoyed the personal element that this informal language and narrative tone brought to the poems. They seem to capture experience without mediation and present it very honestly while avoiding plainness. I notice, though, that despite Eady's conversational tone and speech-like word choices he makes each word work, as in "Johnny on the Mainline": "This man, who I am quickly learning I don't know well at all anymore, is a broken heart, and a heartbreaker" (note the very long line). His skill with words is something I admire and strive for in my own work.

Formally, Eady's poems are intriguing, particularly as regards their lineation. He usually (in this book) alternates between very short, fairly rhythmic lines of two or three beats without many stanzaic divisions and verse paragraphs without any line distinction whatsoever. The 'metered' poems recall song lyrics to mind in the manner in which they sound more formal but maintain the direct conversationaly connection with the reader. I like his style very much: it is the trained speech of a skilled storyteller who can concisely engage his audience. His poetry, I believe, would be a good example of "formal, free, and fractal verse" (see Alice Fulton's 1985 [?] essay on form in contemporary poetry).

I also found his division of the book into sections to be particularly effective. His writing is very thematic - I sometimes wonder if he's exploring an issue thoroughly or beating a dead horse - and fits well within the sections. The section titles I love. "Small Moments" I found delightful: the poems show just that, small moments, but they sparkle and are exactly the sort of thing I find intriguing as a reader and about which I would like to write.

As with perhaps any book, the more I read Eady's 'Autobiography of a Jukebox' the more I like it. Its voice begins to sound like that of a friend - a very real, powerful, wryly aware and devilishly hilarious friend.