As If I’m Really There

Writing a review is easy, I tell myself. All I have to do is read the book and then write what I think. Emilie Collyer’s second full-length collection of poetry, As If I’m Really There, makes the first necessity easy. She is a gracious hostess and serves up an attractively plated, robust yet piquant, four-course meal.

First up is Watching: “All I had to do was want it. Grow into it, my perfect sculpted body. Spread / my effortless charm through every room I entered.” (“When I Was the Sundance Kid”). And then there is With. “$50 an hour, tutoring Bel in quiet / writing. Her car accident brain trauma / suspending her in teen fantasies of fame, flush / with effort to pen her story, use the hook / to write a best-selling work of brilliance.” (“Quiet Hook”).

Wonder takes in Collyer’s parallel career as a playwright. “I am in the front row waiting for the play to begin. I have been seated on the / horns of a dilemma. I don’t remember choosing this seat. It must be what the / ticketing system meant by ‘best available’.” (“A Night at the Theatre”). The book concludes with Weathering. “… some advice says / don’t do twisting movements / the spine can fracture, so it’s all / straight lines from here to / the end.” (“Lateral Ambling Gait”).

The second necessity – writing what I think – doesn’t come so easily. My first thought was that this is a very good book. My second thought was, a very good book of poetry – as if the fact it is poetry were not immediately obvious. The blurb on the back cover points to “Collyer’s avid feminine and feminist interest”. Perhaps this is why As If I’m Really There slipped down so easily for me. This book aligns with my world view as it rolls smoothly forward on the vehicle of poetry’s well-oiled wheels. I could hardly feel the poetry, although I needed it.

A laundress who wants to wash woollens will fill a tub with lukewarm water, so when she tests the temperature she can hardly feel it. This sensation is called “hand-hot”. I wouldn’t often recommend a book of poetry by saying, “You will hardly notice it doing you good” – but on this occasion that is exactly what I am saying. •

Vagabond Press, 96pp, $25

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
September 20, 2025 as “As If I’m Really There”.

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