BACKBENDS: DEBUT MEMOIR BY TIMOTHY DYKE

$19.95

His name is TIM. His mode is TMI, too much information. He is a queer poet who lives with parrots in Honolulu, Hawai’i. Concerned with definitions of truth and questions of what it means to write honestly about personal history, this book weaves anecdotes, horror tales, and self-deprecating humor to create a tapestry of memory and a catalogue of perceived reality. While he aims to understand the difference between confessional contemporary fiction and trauma dumping, TIM confides in his reader about secret histories and the events that have led to his self-acceptance as an asexual English teacher with eye trauma and an irrational fear of the original Willie Wonka movie. Backbends is Timothy Dyke’s “memoir with lies in it.” TIM tells his story without fear and with only a little bit of regret.

“Beautiful, terrifying, heartbreaking, and so funny. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.” —Lee Cataluna, author of Flowers of Hawai’i and People You Meet at Longs
“. . . reaffirms Eduardo Galleano’s dictum that we are all made of stories.” —R. Zamora Linmark, author of The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart
“Through vivid encounters with cigarette-smoking ghosts, a predatory yoga teacher, a metaphysical mango expert, and a revolving door of characters at his beloved Makiki Park, Dyke joins—and destabilizes—a genre inhabited by Brainard, Myles, Bellamy, and Lisicky.” —Lawrence Lenhart, author of Backvalley Ferrets
Backbends was published (June 26, 2025) by High Frequency Press.

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“Beautiful, terrifying, heartbreaking, and so funny. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.” —Lee Cataluna, author of Flowers of Hawai’i and People You Meet at Longs
“. . . reaffirms Eduardo Galleano’s dictum that we are all made of stories.” —R. Zamora Linmark, author of The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart
“Through vivid encounters with cigarette-smoking ghosts, a predatory yoga teacher, a metaphysical mango expert, and a revolving door of characters at his beloved Makiki Park, Dyke joins—and destabilizes—a genre inhabited by Brainard, Myles, Bellamy, and Lisicky.” —Lawrence Lenhart, author of Backvalley Ferrets
Backbends was published (June 26, 2025) by High Frequency Press.

Timothy Dyke is a teacher and writer living in Makiki, Hawai‘i. He is the author of the Tinfish Press prose poetry collections Awkward Hugger and Atoms of Muses and the book-length poem, MAGA. His writing has appeared in numerous journals. Since 1992, Timothy has taught English to young people at Punahou School in Honolulu.