Secrets of the Dictator’s Wife - Katrina Dybzynska

 I’m not certain of the relationship between this collection and Freya Berry’s novel, but there must be one because Ms Berry has endorsed the work! Perhaps if I had read the novel, I might understand! I don’t know if the reading of that novel enhances the reading of these poems but I’m not bothered because I enjoyed the collection very much. My guess is that the poems are a consideration of the title character from the novel. And I guess the only way I’m going to know that is if I read the novel!

I always read poems aloud. And this time I recorded these as I read so that I can listen to them over and over. And it’s been a brilliant way to really absorb this expansive, lyrical poetry. 

Who is better placed to observe and experience the vagaries of power than somebody married to the person wielding that power? I’ve often wondered about the partners of dictators. Whether they questioned the nature of their relationships. Did Eva Braun really love Hitler? 

These poems tap into the psyche of somebody in that position and questioning, perhaps timidly at first, but by the end, more confident, although still questioning.

‘Will I testify against the man

who, at times, seem to be a part of me?’

There’s a mystery and almost a sense of the forbidden as if the protagonist is daring to oppose her husband, wondering if we should even dare to have these thoughts.

‘I learnt not to leave traces. 

To communicate by smoke signals, 

evaporating in the air. To walk as it’s sweeping

 a pine branch behind my footprints.’

I enjoyed her consideration of of everyday life, the normal things that we all do. Gardening, taking showers, going to the hairdressers, but they’re all undertaken beneath the shadow of power.

I think the reader is also asked to question the nature of power. What is it? And why is it? And this poet conjures the past to define the present and place that present into some kind of context. I think my favourite poem of all was the titular poem Secrets of the Dictator’s Wife. Not just because it seems to embody everything that the whole collection is about, but the cadence of the verse emphasised a sense of the confusion maybe, the uncertainty experienced.

‘There was a time when I was not the Dictators 

Wife, though I’m not supposed to talk about it.

Yet I remember. I look back at uncensored 

books and thoughts shared sleepily.

A time in the future was more than escape 

routes and relentless reminders of loyalties.

 The freedom of representing nothing 

but my own, not yet final decisions.’

Another favourite is The Dictator’s Wife Turns Away From the Mirror. I found it very poignant that she doesn’t recognise the face in the mirror, and her suggestion that she has actually become a mirror,

 “waiting to shatter a reflection of someone else. “

The sense that the life of a dictator’s wife is a fragile one pervades the entire work. It’s a powerful collection that insists, with its skilful and astute use of language and poetic devices, that we peel back our own layers and consider what it is to live life in this way.

My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon and Fly on the Wall Press for a gifted copy of this absorbing collection.