In Confidence

(Hardback)

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In Confidence is Jim Tilley's first book of poems, ranging from lyric to narrative in form. About half of the 60 poems are open-form sonnets, most of which fit a broad theme of personal and societal "dislocation." The collection covers a variety of subjects, from father-son and husband-wife relationships to issues of politics, the economy, a

Reviews

It is rare to encounter a first book of poems as clear-eyed and accomplished as Jim Tilley's In Confidence. The press of everyday experience informs these deceptively calm poems, rippling with disturbing undercurrents. Whether imagining the incursion of windmills in Nantucket Sound (Vase of Tall White Stalks), or seeing "something fractal in forsythia" (In Spring, Mathematics Are Yellow), Tilley's imagination is fluent and unforced, his eye fresh to the natural world that he searchingly inhabits. At his best, Tilley writes about the ordinary moments in a life in an extraordinary way. --Elizabeth Spires

Jim Tilley does confide in his readers here as he explores a refreshing variety of subjects--everything from the complexity of father-son and husband-wife relations to the more solvable problems of dark matter and the origins of the cosmos. But what wins our confidence is not his range but his steady hand on the poem and his steady gaze at the world. --Billy Collins

At first glance Jim Tilley's In Confidence seems to consist of calm, graceful poems of upper middle class domesticity, but turkey vultures wait in the yard and many stories have unhappy endings. Instead the poems are about trying to maintain "this fragile equilibrium" like a tightrope walker tip-toeing above a lion's den. One sees the quiet elegance is all that keeps one from shouting, "Watch out!" These are finely crafted poems in which readers will find bits and pieces of their own lives. --Stephen Dobyns

In Jim Tilley's In Confidence, we see the internal and external workings of the world through a mature poet's multifaceted lens. Crafting his poems with formal care, Tilley always aims for "the clearest vision one can imagine," whether looking through the intricacies of scientific reasoning, the "perennial memories" that accompany aging, or the unexpected, undeniable logic of "the metaphor out there in the snow." --Claudia Emerson

Jim Tilley is a bracing and quietly confident writer, able to consistently surprise us, whether in missives from domestic life, topical poems, or poems which quirkily address what he calls "the big questions." These are wry, bittersweet, and unobtrusively instructive poems in the tradition of Wilbur, Schuyler, and Dunn, and they are very much worth reading. --David Wojahn

Author Bio

In Confidence (Red Hen Press, 2011) is Jim Tilley's first book of poetry. He earned a doctorate in Physics from Harvard University and retired ten years ago after a 25-year career in insurance and investment banking. His poems have been published in several top literary journals and magazines. He has won the Sycamore Review's Wabash Prize for Poetry and the New England Poetry Club's Firman Houghton Award. Four of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.