While reading Tiffany Troy’s When Ilium Burns the line “brain to dissociate, / and to upgrade itself into running faster and harder” jumped off the page for aren’t we all in a semi-constant state of dissociation? Multitasking at breakneck speed, instant messaging and downloads, always becoming more efficient and readily accessible. Within this constant state of more, it is increasingly more effortless than ever to disconnect from life, each other, and the world, to disappear into technology, work, and politics. In this collection, the speaker retreats into this mirage of safety, simultaneously uncertain and confident, defiant even, whether standing up to the threats of the “lady attorney / cutting our ethernet one day” or “Papa who is the fat worm in my intestines.” The speaker wrestles inwardly and outwardly with raging battles while relying on the numbing solace doled out by their PC and food before the speaker engages in their next secret war.

Sometimes the villains the speaker takes on are real, others are symbolic creatures, monsters that the reader can define based on their own experiences. The protagonists of these poems are on individual quests to unearth meaning and to connect on some greater plane. “I want life to matter, no matter what.” Will the skies and seas signal a direction, point them to an altruistic path, or simply complicate the journey? Each individual is stuck in their own purgatory, whether thrust upon themselves or outwardly inflicted. But their “heart / inside that golden center which even today is shining” cannot remain suppressed for too long. The characters constantly regroup and return as they “must keep the faith” ever more resolute in their vow, “I / will be reborn / from the flames.” Their torture and pain will be the price of their individual salvation in the end. 

There is a larger quite somber parable at work in this volume, applied across a variety of settings and characters as they all search and hope some “light might still grace our faces” while they profess “You must not let them kill the love in your heart.” This usage of the second person address is employed to describe another character talking to the speaker, while in other instances, the “you” breaks the poetic fourth wall. The reader is complicit in the actions of the speaker and needs to ruminate on the lines’ relevance in their lives. Readers are forced to reckon with the timeless notion that love is the antidote to dispiriting defeat. The trials and tribulations of these characters feel at once epic and ordinary, as they draw attention to themselves and their desire to be heard. Who gets to define the messaging that makes headlines, features, and broadcasts, or is it everyone’s moral obligation to demand that their storyline is captured in society’s narrative? These characters are all trying to “succeed in overcoming / their station in this panorama of never belonging” and somehow their success in this endeavor isn’t the goal anyhow.

Shannon Vare Christine is a poet, teacher, and critic living in Bucks County, PA. Her poems have been featured in various anthologies and publications. Additionally, her poetry reviews and literary criticism have been published or are forthcoming in The Lit Pub, Cider Press Review, Sage Cigarettes, and The Laurel Review. Archived writing and more can be found at www.shannonvarechristine.com and on Instagram @smvarewrites.