Mary Ansell reviews
Big Gorgeous Jazz Machine
by Nick Francis Potter

Nick Francis Potter’s Big Gorgeous Jazz Machine, out March 22nd from Driftwood Press, offers an escape from the doldrum of everyday life. Jazz Machine is a book to be read in one sitting, and then re-read. Potter’s use of pencil, watercolor, and even inkblot give heightened meaning to his short, concise poems. The jagged unevenness of the poems sometimes requires a decoding eye, but one that the reader will not mind deploying.

Potter’s comics, a mix of mediums and structures, turn everyday minutiae into poetic creations. Readers will relate to Potter’s thoughts on houseplants and fathers-in-law. In the panel titled “Regarding My Children,” Potter writes, “Please, just go to sleep, please. I love you but I’m tired.” His use of colorful drawings and unique font choices make memorable art out of even the smallest of subjects.

Many of the panels read like puzzles, allowing the reader to pursue the final dictum at a slow pace. Instead of breezing through Potter’s metaphorical fires, houses, and housefires, the reader must work for the prize at the end, observing panels of patchwork along the way. The book is split into distinct sections, each with its own theme. “Alvin Dillinger’s Brother,” for example, tells a very human story about the paranoid, irrational thoughts we end up believing about ourselves. It is also a commentary on mortality.  

The uncommon structure of Big Gorgeous Jazz Machine calls to mind Lynda Barry’s “One Thousand Demons!” among other comic/poetry collections. While comic and poetry connoisseurs will undoubtedly enjoy this book, readers of any type will find a treat in Potter’s work.

Nick Francis Potter is a writer, cartoonist, and educator living in Columbia, Missouri. He is the author of New Animals, winner of the Subito Press Prize for Innovative Prose, published in 2016. His prose and comics have been featured in Ninth Letter, Black Warrior Review, Sleepingfish, Caketrain, Fourteen Hills, The Chattahoo-chee Review, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among many others. He is the comics editor for ANMLY (formerly Drunken Boat). He has an MFA from Brown University and a PhD in English from the University of Missouri, where he currently teaches writing and theory in the Digital Storytelling Program.