Jim Tilley Knihy

Exploring themes of personal and societal dislocation, this poetry collection features 60 poems, predominantly open-form sonnets. The subjects range from familial relationships to pressing political and environmental issues, often revealing hidden dangers beneath their elegant surfaces. Several poems are paired to showcase different outcomes from the same scenario, reflecting the poet's background in physics. Critics note the collection's ability to resonate with readers, offering relatable reflections on life, often with an unsettling twist.

Against the Wind is an elegantly written story of relationships involving six principal characters, strands of whose lives braid together after a chance reunion among three of them. A successful environmental lawyer is forced to take himself to task when he realizes that everything about his work has betrayed his core beliefs. A high school English teacher asks her former high school love to take up her environmental cause. A transgender adolescent male raised by his grandparents struggles to excel in a world hostile to his kind. A French-Canadian political science professor finds himself left with a choice between his cherished separatist cause and his marriage and family. An accomplished engineer is chronically unable to impress his more accomplished father sufficiently to be named head of the international wind technology company his father founded. The Quebec separatist party's Minister of Natural Resources, a divorcée, finds herself caught between her French-Canadian lover and an unexpected English-Canadian suitor.

The collection offers a poignant exploration of the current turmoil in the country and the world, blending new works with selected older poems. It delves into themes of interpersonal relationships, capturing the emotional landscape of contemporary life through evocative language and imagery.

Through a nostalgic lens, Jim Tilley reflects on his formative summers spent at camp, capturing the essence of childhood experiences. The poems highlight key moments such as fire-lighting contests, canoe races, and the bittersweet farewells that mark the end of each season. Tilley explores how these seemingly simple events impart lasting lessons, revealing deeper insights that resonate with readers long after their own summers have ended. The collection serves as a heartfelt tribute to the joys and lessons of youth.

Exploring personal relationships through the lens of physics and mathematics, this collection features reflections from a retired Wall Street physicist. Divided into three sections—Dear Wife, Dear Self, Dear Friends—Tilley finds beauty in everyday moments, using concepts like quantum mechanics as metaphors for family dynamics. The book culminates in a personal essay that delves into the author's relationship with his father, intertwining emotional depth with mathematical language.