Em Dial, In the Key of Decay

 

Mamestra Brassicae

In the early spring,cabbage moths bloom,
a likely target of coosfrom my students,
whose hands I hold as I reachthem the word
pupae. What anagent of evil I am, to dash
their hopes of the swarmdrifting across
drafts of love, likeMonarchs. The white
flock has descended onour broccoli,
our brussel sprouts, ourcollard greens,
to unleash a tsunami ofhungry mouths
and I can’t lie to them. Theyaren’t butterflies.

I’mjust now seeing a copy of Toronto-based poet Em Dial’s [see their ’12 or 20 questions’ interview here] full-length debut, In the Key of Decay (Windsor ON:Palimpsest Press, 2024), a collection of lyrics held in monologue, gesture. I’dseen Dial’s poems recently in Permanent Record: Poetics Towards the Archive (New York NY: Nightboat Books, 2025) [see my review of such here] and wasimpressed, although I’d even think their poem included in that particularanthology a direction I’d like to see further. Their poems in this collection area narrative blend of performative and meditative, offering elements of beautyand decay and everything between, amid and through, a collection, as the backcover offers, that “pushes past borders both real and imagined to attend tothose failed by history.” “In my worst nightmares,” the poem “On Beauty”begins, “I am pregnant / my body swelling out / with a demon        but a small task to country. // Just aswhen awake, I am begging / myself into a somewhere        thumbing / my ribs for the definitionof country / other than the two blue passports / kissing in the desk drawer.” Thepoems in In the Key of Decay are declarative, considered. In the Key ofDecay is a solid opening, and I’m intrigued by Dial’s formalconsiderations, pushing against the boundaries of lyric constraint, but one opento further possibilities (such as their poem in Permanent Record, whichdoes move into some really interesting structural territory). The poems are smartand wild and restrained, offering elements of fantastic monologues and shortscenes and lines that lean into the musical, as “Lost in the World” offers:

My chest ticks          to the rhythm

of a frenziedcompass.          Where are we again?

Maybe all thegenerations          dressed in

Immigration becauselost         and          love

are as universal as          a drum beat.