Tropic of Orange

August 1, 1997
The second installment in an invaluable three-volume collection of a neglected American original presents seven of Metcalf's inspired and spirited textual collages. Deeply immersed in American history and the paradoxes of our culture, Metcalf stretches narrative beyond traditional limits in an attempt to give voice to the cacophony of the past, the clamoring of the present, and the mind's quicksilver processing of memory, thought, and fantasy. To that end, his writing is boldly improvisational and sporadically surreal, sparking with shifting emotions and perspectives. Metcalf describes his complex style in the introduction to "I-57," a wonderfully inventive chronicle of an interstate journey across Illinois on I-57: "Not a poem, not a novel, not a journal, yet at times some or all of these." Other works include a tribute to Willie Mays; "Zip Odes"(a set of poems to each state and the District of Columbia); and compositions about Columbus' encounter with Native Americans and about the Civil War. ((Reviewed Aug. 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)