Tuesday Poetry Review

Trouble And Honey
Jilly Dybka
64 pp., Bear Shirt Press
$7.77 (Lulu.com)


Earlier today, I had my son go to the post office to pick up the mail. When he came back, shouting that I had mail, I knew he was talking about Jilly Dybka's book, Trouble And Honey. I bought the book right after Jilly announced that it was available, and I must tell you there is much to both admire and envy with this book of poems.

Upon opening the book, I was immediately taken by the unassuming font, text, and layout choices. All were quite deceptive, because once I started reading the poems I fell into a place both strangely familiar, yet somewhat distant to my experiences. I can't easily explain this, but reading deeper into this book was like walking into a familiar room that has had the furniture rearranged.

The first thing I became conscious of was how easily Dybka uses the sonnet, how she floats in and out of the form, throwing entire cycles at the reader. I measure a good sonnet by how quickly I notice which conventions of the form are being manipulated or used. In Dybka's case, I was impressed time and again how seamless and innovative her control of the sonnet is. In truth, I haven't seen such a successful use of the sonnet in a small collection of poems since Katharine Coles' A History of the Garden. In "Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN," the sonnet opens with a conversational tone, so relaxed you hardly notice that you are being sucked into its magic:

So in this town all is nimbus rhinestone
Nudie Suits and fading whiskey cologne.

The next thing I took notice of is Dybka's use of titles. I attended a workshop where the instructor urged us to be more descriptive with our titles; be like the Chinese. Jilly Dybka must have been at that workshop or intuitively known what we were talking about. With titles like:

"Found Poem: Preston Surges' Eleven Rules For Box Office Appeal"
&
"Walking Through the Orchard of Forgetfulness"
&
"Dock Ellis Pitches A No-Hitter On LSD"

how can you not want to dig deeper into the book and see what really lies around the next page?

In the poem, "The Retired Vietnam Munitions Loader Attempts To Open A Can of Biscuits," Dybka is able to bring the reader into a very real, often hyperbolized reality of a combat veteran's experience. For me, the poem rings true---not because I am a combat veteran, but because I have known two men in my life who were in Vietnam and would have the same difficulty for the exact reason described in the poem. For them, it would not be hyperbole, and Dybka does a marvelous job, as with all her poems, in bringing this very specific experience to a much broader audience.

Ending the book with "Lost Things," Dybka says:

Some things are just lost for good. That idea
after dinner. Your cat when you were ten.
Gone, all gone away, raindrops in the sea.

There is at least one small thing from everything in this book of poems which has been lost, but it certainly is not craft, nor is it the imagination. What has been lost is the plain, the easy to get, the paint-by-number answers too many of us crave at the end of the day. What remains are some very good questions, a different way of seeing a world we thought we knew by heart, and just maybe a fraction of our innocence.

I have not spoken to any overall theme sustained in this book, and I don't think I want to because I am still unsure of what it might be. However, I am struck with several ideas I would like to share. After reading this book, I am at once pleased and a bit jealous. I wish that I could write a single sonnet as fine as any one of the multitude presented here. I confess I am hoping to dream some of these poems tonight, re-imagining them in a new context. And what about theme? Well, just like some things stay lost, it may be that some things are not to be easily found in the first place.