In "The Annotated Murder of One," Jared Pearce takes lines, phrases, and words from the Counting Crows song, “A Murder of One,” and spins them into new directions and dimensions, exploring themes rooted in memory, history, the future, and the relationship between love and understanding. The poems are experiments in mixing song and poetry, lyrics and stories, memory and vision. Imagery, including birds, ghosts, flowers, jokes, a clutch of kids, and the “you” at its center, forms the weave that holds this nest of poems.

While versions of some of these poems have appeared individually in journals and magazines, the full appreciation of their unifying themes can only be experienced in the collection. The first lines of the poem, “Since We Were Born” might encapsulate best the spirit of the collection: “We break into directions / and parcel into dimensions.” The reader of The Annotated Murder of One will indeed be transported to spaces old, new, and always wonderful.