Patricia Dobler Books

In Patricia Dobler's Collected Poems, readers meet a once intelligent, funny, wise, and amazing woman and writer. This collection, with selections from her previous books including Now, Talking to Strangers, and UXB: Poems and Translations, displays mastery of an array of literary genre and influences, including the postmodern, satire, Romanticism, and (as this reader detects) a hint of Native American literary tradition. For example, many of the poems within the beginning of the collection reflect her unique, individual style that incorporates qualities of Native American symbolism and emphasis on man's close and beneficial connection to nature.
Repeatedly, Dobler reflects upon the fact that she, like most of humanity, is influenced by her past-her German heritage proves to be an overriding theme in many of the poems-and her present state of consciousness. In many ways, the poems that muse upon her anthropological history suggest a desire to be both separate from and inherently connected to her German ancestry. In fact, Dobler urges us in "Train Platform: Munich to Dachau" to examine all parts of history and be "of a mind to understand." In her reflections on Germany, which includes concentration on the elephant in the room-Nazis and concentration camps-and traditional German idealisms, Dobler hopes to maintain her heritage and, in doing so, to encourage others to realize that they are not just of the present, but also of the past. We are who we are because of where we and our ancestors have been.
Additionally, Dobler presents a refreshing sense of humor containing underlying wisdom in several of her poems. Perhaps the best of these poems is "The Penelope Interview." In this poem Dobler introduces us to the "real" Penelope. Her witticisms, sarcasm, and candor cause the reader to laugh out loud. We are given the inside scoop behind Penelope's view on the suitors, Odysseus, weaving, and the folly of psychoanalysis. In this poem, the persona of Penelope reminds the interviewer and reader that she is merely a fiction, but Dobler creates a fictional character more real and tangible than that created by Homer. Dobler also hints at her ideas on literature and literary analysis in addition to what it means to be a woman now and in Penelope's time. With the interviewer's slight ignorance, Dobler presents a metaphor for the average human, who lives in misconceptions about the lives and attitudes of women and the importance of artistic creation. Perhaps this is just a personal bias, but "The Penelope Interview" is reason enough for a reader to pick up Dobler's Collected Poems. This poem proves Dobler to be the excellent writer she was known to be and a wise teacher to us all.
The poems presented in Collected Poems contain a variety of styles, from prose-like syntax and diction to a stream of consciousness, in-the-moment style of writing. In any case, in all of the poems, Dobler tells a story. Some are connected. Some could stand alone in their power and construction. She captures the varied rhythm of jazz and the burning heart of the blues. She expresses the secret powers and wisdom of women, and she expounds upon the immortality of poets like Sappho, Eurydice, and all those poets who have gone through true and trying experiences, have expressed them in the written word, and have been extolled and rehearsed by generation after generation. Though a reader may have never met Pat Dobler face-to-face, her expressive narrative poetry tells us much about her: she was a woman and a writer proud of her German and literary heritage-a heritage that goes as far back as Sappho and beyond. In her poetry, we learn about ourselves and the society that surrounds, often overwhelms, and either makes or breaks us. These collected poems will triumph the test of history and life. She is the Sappho of today's age.