Robert M. Tobias, a debut author at 82, completed his fourteen-year career as the General Counsel of the National Treasury Employees Union successfully suing Presidents Nixon ($533M in back pay) and Reagan (reversing his cancellation of all federal appointments from the time of his election to the date of his inauguration), and several federal agencies concerning violations of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. He then served as the union president for sixteen years leading federal employees as they lobbied for increased federal employee pay and benefits. His third twenty-four-year career involved creating the Key Executive Leadership Certificate Program at American University, targeted toward increasing career federal supervisors’ leadership capacity. What Lives in Me, is career four.
PRAISE:
Robert Tobias begins his poignant book of poetry, What Lives in Me, with his birth—difficult not only for his mother, (a 52-hour labor), but also for himself, a “blue and gasping” infant. Childhood illnesses (strep-infused rheumatic fever) and a father (for whom a “sickly” son was a failure) undermined Tobias’s confidence and damaged his little heart, physically and metaphorically. Tobias understands how fear continues through schooldays and college years, how even an adult with a “baseball-sized tumor in [his] kidney sac” becomes a frightened 5-year-old when told he “might die.” Tobias, union labor lawyer, union president, and the Director of Executive Education at American University, knows fear bedevils us most of our lives, but if we are fortunate as he is, we struggle to learn to be less lonely by trusting our lives and our fears to others. In these honest and thoughtful poems, he shows us how we learn to “ask to be held.”
–Lois Marie Harrod, Spat and Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis
“Robert Tobias‘ debut work, What Lives in Me, builds in its sheaf of pages a shape, a ship made of portraits, a lifetime of crossings and movement and change. With remarkable wisdom and emotional intelligence, its speaker guides the reader by the beam of revelation, with even a protective nudge now and then for its protagonist who ages and matures before our eyes. The figure at the center seems shuttled by the sheer will that seems to drive like waves under the boat of his life. A book that holds back nothing, it points its bow to wherever the wind directs it: loss, love, even life’s humiliations, even tumult, and ultimately, in the embracing, triumph.”
–David Keplinger, Director, MFA Program in Creative Writing, American University
Robert M. Tobias‘s strong narrative voice is part of why “What Lives in Me” is such a powerful collection of poetry. The poems explore the impact and legacy of a fraught relationship with parents, in a memorable and surprising way. Robert M. Tobias “What Lives in Me” is a remarkable memoir in poetry that builds in a way that is immersive and really resonates with the reader. A wonderful and memorable debut collection.
–Caitlin Thomson, Co-Founder of Authors Publish and her poems have appeared in The Fiddlehead, Jelly Bucket, The Literary Review of Canada, Air/Light, Tar River Poetry, The Adroit Journal, The Moth, The Penn Review, Radar,The Conium Review, and Killer Verse (Knopf)
NEWS AND MORE:
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Chloe Yelena Miller, writer and writing teacher, posted Robert Tobias’s recollection of the origin of “Do Dreams Come True,” the first poem written in his debut collection, What Lives in Me, at her Substack, https://chloeyelenamiller.substack.com/p/poems-origin-story-robert-tobias.
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Robert M. Tobias appeared on Henry Crawford’s Everyday Poet podcast, Robert M. Tobias appeared on Henry Crawford’s podcast (https://everydaypoet.substack.com/p/what-lives-in-me) to discuss his signature poem, Fear of Failure is Born, that appears in What Live in Me that will be published on July 10, 2026. It sets the stage for a series of autobiographical poems about a son who is driven by the fear failure imprinted by his father, until he confronts the cost of masculinity, ambition, and shame to reclaim his own voice.
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Robert Tobias recently appeared on A Book Finds You (https://a-book-finds-you.simplecast.com/episodes/robert-m-tobias) a podcast sponsored by the Maryland Writers Association. He discussed how he began writing poetry late in life about a yearning for his Dad to “tousle my hair” and tell me I “did a good job.” That memory opened the door to a series of autobiographical poems that became What Lives in Me, about a son driven by the fear and judgment inherited from his father, until he confronts the cost of masculinity, ambition, and shame to reclaim his own voice.
John O’Dell –
These poems honor clear-eyed eloquence, a rich collection about winning, losing, enduring, and, most importantly about living. “I Won’t die” from “Freedom to Ride” serves as a mantra for the entire collection. We embark on a fully believable journey, an exploration of “The American Dream” from working class origins to Detroit’s Management echelons with language and imagery always fully alive, accessible. Throbbing with intensity and honesty, as in “I Was Proud” or “Naked and Lonely” is a longing for connection, a desperate need to be a part of the human experiment. Here are Detroit factory poems, suburban Michigan life, its families, doctors, nurses, and teachers, some who stifle (“An Early Critic”) and those like Mrs. Jones who liberate and inspire. We know the age’s economics from the labels on clothes: Hudson’s for the wealthy, Sears for the workers.
Lyrical, keenly observant, powerfully evocative. An outstanding collection.