There is a fine line between irony and insincerity, a line that is apparently a bit too narrow for many contemporary writers to avoid stumbling over. Which is no great surprise: it seems the moment you step into the realm of poetic self-revelation it becomes a matter of when, not if, you end up looking a little too melodramatic. The poignant memories are too poignant, the nostalgia too nostalgic, the heartbreakingly genuine confessions just a tad too heartbreakingly genuine. Yet this is a predicament which author Jeffery McDaniel, in his collection of poems entitled The Forgiveness Parade, surprisingly manages to avoid. Well, mostly.

Though there are probably enough poets who write like McDaniel to fill up a football stadium, there appear to be few who can pull off his mixture of sarcasm, humor and empathy without coming across as jaded "hipster" word-manglers. That's not to say he doesn't occasionally drop a line which makes the reader wonder just what the hell he was thinking. Quite the contrary, those occasions are rather frequent, particularly in the sadistically romantic Part Three where he enumerates tale after tale of soured love and bizarre attraction — some of which are just so bizarre they cease to make sense. But in a clever twist of poetic license, McDaniel has managed to turn those wince-inducing moments into instances of revelatory, unapologetic humility. Rather than detracting from the overall strength of the work, they provide momentum that propels his writing forward, writing which is subtly self-deprecating, unabashedly (perhaps even intentionally) flawed, yet still strangely compassionate.

Early on in the collection, the language is somewhat subdued: recollections of an unorthodox childhood emerge from McDaniel's words quietly and resolutely like a toddler repeatedly asking for a glass of water. There is little immediate sentiment to accompany the descriptions of his mother's neglect, his father's incompetence; only the author's sly detachment and intermittent regret towards the events of his own life serve as an anchor to their real emotional weight. Much of the strength of these poems are derived from the clever tongue in cheek analogies that pepper the language like one-two punches. (One of the easiest ways to avoid speaking of something painful is, of course, to speak of something else. McDaniel has apparently mastered this art.) This particular approach to his storytelling remains constant throughout the collection, and only infrequently does he drop this veil of comparative association to make direct allusions to his own personal suffering and guilt.

In "The Obvious," the analogy could not be more, well, obvious. Centered around the distressing image of a neglected child, the poem proceeds passively and regretfully, like someone slowly shaking their head. Dry humor, even in this relatively serious piece, is present with the mention of "Armenian," yet the overall tone is one of nagging helplessness, a hands-up-in-the-air "What could I have done?" that seems to simultaneously take and disavow all responsibility for the dysfunction of the family. The "it" here could easily be substituted for "I" or "me," but the fact that it isn't suggests that McDaniel really does take some of the burden of his own peculiar upbringing onto his own shoulders. Yet like the people depicted in the poem he hardly acknowledges the situation as being one worth getting excited over, and he brushes off the years of implied emotional seclusion and isolation with a "pat on the head" and a restrained, unemotional attitude. There is little melodrama in this reflective first portion of the collection — he's saving that for later.

Then along come parts Two, Three and Four, and the muted indifference of the previous poems is lost in a headlong rush of hostility and recalcitrance, hallucinatory narration and ambiguous symbolism. It's as if Jeffery McDaniel woke up from his childhood all at once, and with a really bad hangover. The language whiplashes between sentimentality and disgust, and his use of analogy descends rather frequently into histrionics, seeming in some instances painfully...even blatantly...contrived (note the pseudo-sexual carryings-on in "The Jerk"). In poems where rampant hysteria is not present, a more amorous side of the author emerges, yet even these seemingly heartfelt narratives are tinged with a sense of unrepentant apathy. "I have this fear of her rushing towards me, as if I'm a train leaving a station. She missed me. I'm already gone," he confesses in "Orbited By Kisses" (just what, one might ask, motivated him to give it that hideous title?), a poem carried along by a tone which suggests someone apologizing for something they're really not sorry for. Taking into account the sordid nature of his subject matter, it is a wonder that McDaniel doesn't fall into the trap of appearing insincere more often. But he manages to sidestep this particular difficulty by making those contrived analogies and over-the-top dramatics work in his favor, a sort of constant reminder to the reader that he really just doesn't take himself that seriously. It's a technique that I'm personally quite familiar with...or at least the analogizing part of it (one can never really tell if their prose or poetry "works" until someone else comes along and says so...which in my case is pretty rarely). For a writer who's never entirely sure of the right way to say something, the word "like" can be a best friend, occasionally to the point where communication becomes impossible without it.

Whether it was intentional or not, McDaniel's chronic use of symbolism makes perfect sense to me and my analogy-addled brain. Of course it would be nice, as an added bonus, if my use of such methods also resulted in the appearance of not really taking myself seriously, but given my propensity for word-crazy puncuationless monologues I seriously doubt my ability to appear detached. Then again I can honestly say that I've never been out buying crack at 3:00am, so who knows, maybe an experience like that would shut me up.

Jeffery McDaniel - The Forgiveness Parade