Any Island by Ilka Scobie

Abstract

Reviewed by: Any Island by Ilka Scobie Lynn McGee (bio) any island Ilka Scobie Spuyten Duyvil http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/any-island.html 56 pages; Print, $16.00 Native New Yorker Ilka Scobie is not infatuated with the city of her birth. Her regard for the urban puzzle known as New York City is a mature love recognizing its flaws with unapologetic nostalgia. She pulls this off with aplomb, as in "2B": "Brooklyn, where I'm from, boasts mad Bs / Bedford Stuyvesant, Bed-Stuy, do or die / Brownsville, or the Ville / Bay Ridge of sweeping bridge." In "Taxi" she mourns the direction the economy of New York City has taken, as evidenced by the extinction of the iconic Checker cab: "Soon you will be a nostalgic footnote, like Gem Spa, egg creams, / The Village Voice, and subway tokens. / We are left with Uber, Via, Lyft; acronyms for anonymity." In "What to Wear to the Demonstration," a tone-setting poem that anchors the collection's voice, the first line is "Black, of course," and in the lines that follow the speaker fuses style with necessity, including the necessity [End Page 133] of pushing back: "Black, sophisticated, stylish, sensual / hides the grim of urban life. / Garbed in black, we are an army." As for what to push back against, Scobie moves her scope from local to national in "Dark Daze" and gives a nod to inclusion: "If you are a woman, be very afraid … And if you are gay, do not believe his [a reference to a "commander in chief" who is "a chauvinist"] lying lips / There will be no support for an Equality Act." That spirit of inclusiveness might seem to wane in "To the Boy Who Wants to be a Girl," as the speaker looks "straight into" the "innocent eyes" of an individual who is transitioning from male and female, and admits, "it's beyond my middle-aged, middle-class, / hetero comprehension, why, lovely child / that you are, / there is an urgency to deny the dick between your legs." Some will lose connection with the speaker in that moment, but overall the tone of moral authority in Any Island resonates convincingly, at least for this reader. "On the Destruction of the Seventh-Century Assyrian Winged Bull in Mosul, Iraq" appears to reference the invasion of Iraq after 9/11 and observes that "No sapient shards penetrate the hatred / That shatters ancient artifacts … Whoever would destroy the creation of my hands, / Let the great lord destroy his name and posterity on earth." Spinning off from other cultural events that have political overtones, "Space Pioneers" provides an epigraph: "On Nov. 17, 2011, the Congress awarded gold medals to the original astronauts," and while John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins are not named in the poem, the speaker compares these "space pioneers" with women emerging in the same era as social pioneers. If the reader brings to the poem the knowledge that John Glenn flew into space in 1962 and it wasn't until 1974 that women could open credit in their own name, it can be satisfying to read, "Where is our well-deserved recognition / For venturing where no (wo)man has tread before / Inner space astronauts." A spiky flowerlike image in a drawing by Elisabeth Kley, Untitled Drawing, complements this poem. Other visuals throughout the collection include the ink drawing Ugo Rondinno, by einunddreissigsteroktoberzweitausendundsieben; and a moody, massive drawing of a tree that echoes the poem "Millennium": "How naïve our ancestors, who believed / in limitless forest and eternal fauna. / Worshipping consumerism, we squandered nature / for the fantasy of virgin birth." [End Page 134] Recognized as a political poet—alongside New York City writers of similar generation including Sparrow, Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, Lewis Warsh, Bernadette Mayer, and others—in person, Scobie reads her work aloud with a certainty that is consistent with her critical reviews appearing in Brooklyn Rail and other venues. The insight of a lifelong resident who has seen her city evolve over decades dovetails with the perspective of a traveler in "Sakura," where Scobie reveres the ginkgo trees of the Brooklyn she grew up in and bemoans "Trees cut to make room for architectural / grandiosity...