Stephen Dobyns

“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