IRIS: A FLOWER OF STRENGTH.

Iris DeMent's speaking voice, which still retains the soft, Southern drawl of her Arkansas roots, belies a strength clearly present in the way she makes music.

It's a power that comes from a lot of things, she says, but mostly from the conviction of knowing you're doing what you know you were meant to do.

``When I finally started writing songs, it was like something special had happened to me,'' says DeMent, who is considered among the finest young talents in country music and has been heralded by the likes of Merle Haggard.

``From the first song, it was like a spiritual experience. I knew then that I'd never do anything else. I've never lost that sense inside of me.''

It just took her a while to find it in the first place.

Born in Arkansas, she moved to Buena Park at an early age. DeMent was the last of 14 children in a devout family. As a teen-ager, she sang in the church choir, but in high school she was a loner and found schoolwork uninteresting. She became disenchanted with her church and quit the choir and, within a year, quit high school, too.

``I wasn't learning much in high school,'' she says. ``To tell you the truth, I felt like the teacher didn't even see me. Nobody was paying attention and I decided I'd do just as well working at Kmart.''

She got her GED and started working, but she was restless and ended up living in Topeka, Kan., with a boyfriend and taking classes at a local college. It was in a creative writing class that DeMent first began to think about writing songs.

A lifelong fan of music, especially country and folk, DeMent had long played guitar but had never played in public or even thought about writing her own songs. But she got needed encouragement from her writing professor and, a few months after the class ended, she wrote her first song. She was 25 and she was reborn.

``It was a transformation for me,'' she says.

``I really do feel like it's a gift from God, and I really feel like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing,'' said DeMent, who spoke by phone from San Francisco, where she is performing in support of her third album, ``The Way I Should,'' (her second for Warner Bros.). She appears tonight at the House of Blues in West Hollywood.

DeMent's songwriting still comes in fits and starts - it took her 2-1/2 years to complete the 11 songs on ``The Way I Should'' - but she's found a comfort zone, and even performing, which she didn't do until her late 20s either, is getting easier.

``I think I'm shy, although I hate using that word,'' she says. ``I've had to become less that way ... because I have such a passion to play my music. I don't have any choice.''

DeMent has the rare freedom in the recording industry of controlling her creative destiny. Signed to a multirecord deal with Warner Bros., DeMent gets to chose what goes in the album and on the album jacket - and everything in between.

``I've never had interference whatsoever,'' she says.

``If it were any other way, I'd be asking to be let go,'' she says. ``I just don't believe that creative things should be messed with. I value this gift that's been given to me. I'm very protective of it.''

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Photo: `I really do feel like it's a gift from God, and I really feel like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.'

Iris DeMent

singer-songwriter