 Though the subject matter is sometimes heavy, Dobbyn has a light touch that uses irony, wordplay, rhyme, and ample space between the words to make palatable these musings on some of life's most difficult, if universal, experiences. The knowledge that the visitation the poet experienced was his father's last goodbye brings solace and closure to both poet and reader.
Reviewed by Liz Hall-Downs
Soul Healing Afoot / Dead Dad Bye
by Paul Dobbyn
Designed & typeset by Gemma O'Brien
Brisbane, Australia, 2008, Softcover, 80 pages, AUS $20
Available from: paul.jennifer@optusnet.com.au, or (in Australia) 0409872635
This elegant little poetry book has two front covers, that is, with two separate collections contained within it. It's been some years since Paul Dobbyn published his last collection, 'War Spoils', a chapbook detailing his father's military service and the effects of these experiences on his subsequent personal and family life. 'War Spoils' (1994) was a clear-eyed but compassionate book about a son seeking to understand a father, however this didn't stop the local press in northern New South Wales' Tweed Shire from interpreting the work as some kind of anti-war protest without even sighting the work. The subsequent Daily News banner, 'POET PLANS PROTEST' was set on fire outside the launch, possibly by a disgruntled digger, and the poet lived to tell the tale. The banner survives too, on the poet's wall, as a rare instance of the word 'Poet' making headline news.
Unlike the ranting, raving, populist, (and frequently facile), performance poetry that seems to be springing up everywhere lately, Dobbyn's work is much slower in the fermentation, and deals with some of life's big questions. These are deeply felt, considered, highly-crafted poems about the challenges of middle age, about weathering divorce and rebuilding a life from its ashes, and about facing the death of an elderly parent - but they are not devoid of humour and, often, clever word play. Gemma O'Brien's lovely linocuts relate subtly to the poetry and, combined with the unusual font and off-white paper, the overall effect is of an 'artist's book'.
'Soul Healing Afoot' is the longer sequence, and deals with personal transformation: the poet drives into the desert while contemplating his unknown future; an encounter with a snake's shed skin prompts the lines: '... I knew how he felt, / that snake: / shiny and fresh - slicing through the grass: / chuckling at life's best trick - and gift - of all' (p.5); a sunset provokes lamentation for his 'fragmented family'; a crushed beetle mirror's the poet's weariness at the seeming ruthlessness of life: 'Take me. / I am pale and / drained, and / ready for a / kinder planet' (p.20). The landscape of the Tweed Valley, and in particular Murwillumbah, watched over by the mysterious Mount Warning, represents the poet's past, married life and, as he heals, he looks to the future, for 'someone shining to rest my eyes on' (p.31). A visit to 'Eric the Bonecracker' (p.37 ) 'mine[s] a / motherlode of love / over 30 / long years', freeing him from his memories and bringing the joy of 'Resurrection' in the form of new love (p.41). And in 'Warning Winter Blue' (p.43) the poet's new circumstances (now 'alive in peace') prompt him to forgive the brooding mountain that for so long had cast its long shadow over his marriage.
'Dead Dad Bye' is an altogether different type of sequence, focusing on the death of the poet's father and what he calls in the preface the 'truly strange experience' of a visitation at the moment of death - an experience that helps him to come to terms with a relationship that was flawed and can now never be repaired. 'Lt Denis Dobbyn AIF' (p.7) provides some insight into a father whose war expereince changed him irrevocably, and in 'My Father's Operation' (p.12) a series of puns - which the senior Dobbyn loved - adds levity to the picture of sickness and suffering. It is at this point that father reconciles with son: 'Your bright eyes / held mine and / it was as though / at last you'd let / your love for me / shine through' (p.16, 'At Last'), and the son is finally able to release the anger and sense of abandonment he'd felt since being sent away as a child to a home for crippled children.
'Six Steps in a Father's Death' (p.18) looks unflinchingly at both the anticipation and the actual experience of grief and loss. The poet rushes to his dying father's bedside, and, on entering the hospital room, says, 'I thought you'd die / before I came!' Then comes honest response and, from others, equally honest embarrassment: 'The sobs that came were / loud and free / as I fell and hugged / your body - longing / to hear your voice once more. / / Well the rellies shooshed / and looked quite shocked, / but to hell with hospitals! / This was my dad, a / good old bloke, / not just some dying dog. / We went back forty / funny years ... ' This sequence is as good an explanation as any as to why the world would be infinitely poorer without the emotive voices of poets.
Though the subject matter is sometimes heavy, Dobbyn has a light touch that uses irony, wordplay, rhyme, and ample space between the words to make palatable these musings on some of life's most difficult, if universal, experiences. The knowledge that the visitation the poet experienced was his father's last goodbye brings solace and closure to both poet and reader. Paul Dobbyn had some success as a poet in the 1970s, being twice commended for the FAW (WA) Tom Collins Poetry Prize, but the pressures of earning a living and supporting a family hijacked his time and energy and stymied his output for many years. As the old adage goes, age has not wearied him; his work is better than ever, and it's good to have him back.
About the reviewer: Liz Hall-Downs has been writing, publishing and performing since the early 1980s. Her published poetry collections include: Conscious Razing: combustible poems (1986), Writers of the Storm: 5 East Coast Performance Poets (1993), Fit of Passion (1997), Girl With Green Hair (2000), and My Arthritic Heart (2006). Her poetry has been broadcast on television and radio in Australia and the USA, and published in literary journals. A past winner of poetry slams in St Kilda, Melbourne (1991) and Austin, Texas (1994), she has worked with several performance poetry outfits including 'The Word Warriors' (1990-1), 'Stand-Up Poets' (1992-4), 'Ozpoets' (USA tour 1994), and 'Fit of Passion' (1995-2000). Since 2006 has been singing and playing bush bass in the Brisbane-based alt-country-blues-roots trio 'Cathouse Creek'.
An experienced factual writer, editor, reviewer and manuscript assessor, she has worked on many community arts projects and in 2004 was employed as a writer for Brisbane City Council's 'Creative Democracy: Homelessness' Project.
Liz Hall-Downs confesses to being a friend of the poet; but she also confesses to being a ruthless reviewer who only gives credit where it's due!
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