Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Tim Conroy

This week's Poet of the People is Tim Conroy. I met Tim Conroy several years ago at a Columbia literary event and cajoled him into doing his first poetry feature. We became fast friends, haunting and terrorizing coffee shops throughout Columbia. Later, we teamed up with singer/songwriter, Lang Owen as the Two Hats & a Ponytail trio. When Tim's wife retired, they fled to Florida; however, he will be back in Columbia to perform Tuesday, 05/07 at Simple Gifts and Wednesday, 05/08 at Mind Gravy with Lang and myself for the Reunion Tour of Two Hats and Ponytail.

Tim Conroy is a military brat who has lived all over the country and eventually ended up in South Carolina. A retired educator and beloved social rabble rouser, he has published two books of poetry, Theologies of Terrain, Muddy Ford Press 2017 and No True Route, Muddy Ford Press 2023. During COVID, he co hosted the YouTube poetry interview series, Chewing Gristle

 

Lousy

My Dad said lousy a lot

to describe his children

a lousy jump shot, a lousy right fielder,

a lousy bedmaker, a lousy dishwasher,

with a lousy attitude.

 

We had lousy eyes, freckles, and postures.

 

But he would never admit,

we were stationed in lousy towns.

We could have become lousy

because he fought in three lousy wars,

where he won a few lousy medals.

 

Every year, we left friends and moved

on lousy cross-country car trips.

He had a lousy temper and backhand.

His world turned lousier when our mom divorced him.

He was lousy in love with her.

He tasted lousy when schizophrenia

came for one of his sons.

 

Afterward, he was never a lousy grandfather

or a lousy money giver.

He remained lousy at saying sorry.

 

When he died, we never felt lousier

and knew a pilot's love didn't land empty,

his caps and his godawful shirts,

his lousy flaws, our hearts.

 

No True Route, Muddy Ford Press, 2023

  

The Flight Jacket

hung in the closet to forget the throttle

and how it zoomed from carriers during

the Korean War, dipped into battle

of the Chosin Reservoir for the troops

to make a break for it through scarred paths

and never told its story, zipped up mute

stayed cold to the touch preferring the dark

every day its arms down not saluting

while its empty pockets refused to hold

onto the sound of bombs and men waving

screaming hello, goodbye, and blood marking

each sleeve forever, but the leather saved

many lives, though not Dad’s, his explosions

and how he didn’t want us to touch him

 

 

The Child We Need

 In front of imperial drones,

swollen under cement blocks

—tongues, old and young

because we doubt what is told

because it takes silence to listen

because we need to learn gestures

to rise reversals from wombs.

War-born babies and hostages

with no chink of light, no angels,

no safe mangers even for donkeys,

only hunger and inconsolable wails

until we embody the dead,

the child we need to live won’t

sing and fly paper kites in Gaza.

  

The Best Part

The truth be known,
gay or straight,

the priest gets paid,
the nun has a shitty deal,
the minister wants his ass kissed.

 Meanwhile I have felt a voice
in the forest of owls and ordinary spaces.
Strangers have rescued me from peril;
like you, love has saved me.


Your neighbor is human.

We don’t listen or tell it right,
we take it literally,

we can’t write it down better,
we make it too complicated.

Who have you loved in this journey?
What is it you have given?

 

From Theologies of Terrain, Muddy Ford Press, 2017

 

A Fitted Game

 The American Legion is full of men and women who battle

video games for printed slips to exchange at the bar for cash.

They don't dare add up the losses, so full of gin and silent friends.

Some say it's a loss of purpose and only passing time.

My Dad would have died playing if he hadn't croaked in bed.

His fingers reached, but I did not know what to tell him.

 

Their sacrifice isn't gone, and the popcorn kernels are still free,

salted, and buttered, sliding down throats that burn like cigarettes.

The flashing screen doesn't care who presses the fortune of the hours,

shouldering memories with sips. No soldier deserts the machine

that programs a fitted game, though many dream of a different outcome.

I have loved those players who won once

TIM CONROY's New Book NO TRUE ROUTE Launches Tuesday Oct. 24th at BAR NONE in 5 Points! Read Conroy's interview by MIHO KINNAS & Join Us at Bar None!

Poetry grounds us to the ordinary miracles around us - Tim Conroy

Tim Conroy’s second collection of poetry, No True Route (Muddy Ford Press, 2023) launches Tuesday night, October 24th at Bar None in 5 Points at 6 pm.

Tim Conroy is a poet and former educator. His work has been published in journals, magazines, and compilations, including Fall Lines, Auntie Bellum, Blue Mountain Review, Jasper, Marked by the Water, and Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy. In 2017, Muddy Ford Press published his first book of poetry, Theologies of Terrain, edited by Columbia, South Carolina, poet laureate Ed Madden. A founding board member of the Pat Conroy Literary Center established in his brother’s honor, Tim Conroy lives in Florida.

Advance Praise for No True Route:

Poetry at its best gives the head and heart direction. In No True Route, Tim Conroy sends us straightaway to his life's truths, as he feels them. Words bitter, sweet, brutal, and blunt -- but always beautifully spun, make this intensely personal and pathfinding work worthy of taking along on your own journey. -- J. Drew Lanham, author of Sparrow Envy - Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts 

“How not to be a body / suspended alone”: in poem after poem, Tim Conroy’s No True Route investigates that state of potential isolation, of fatal disconnection narrowly avoided… this “rope knotted to adolescence,” becomes for Conroy a life-line. “Do you recall the moment you first belonged?,” he asks, and the question – amid these “oyster cuts of memory” – is satisfyingly both poignant and affirming. -- Nathalie Anderson, author of Held and Firmly Bound and Stain 

Tim Conroy's second collection, No True Route, continues self-investigation from his past that began in his first book, Theologies of Terrain. Through personal and poetic journeys, the poems have gained more profound insights into the heaviness of life's burden and the possible ways to lightness. -- Miho Kinnas, author of Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias, Move Over, Bird, and Today, Fish Only.

~~~~~

Interview Question from poet Miho Kinnas, author of Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias (2023, Free Verse Press), Move Over, Bird (2019), and Today, Fish Only (2019) from Math Paper Press.

 

What was it like to put together the second collection?

The second collection, No True Route, took six years of writing, revision, and difficult choices. Ed Madden, former poet Laureate of Columbia, South Carolina, helped me hone and order the poems. I am fortunate to continue to work with Muddy Ford Press and publishers Cindi Boiter and Bob Jolley, who have an unyielding ethic to connect regional writers with a community of readers. I hope readers find the poem in the collection meant for them. Or better yet, they will pick up a pen and write poems about their journeys. In No True Route, some poems express loss, brokenness, strength, and how we hold onto each other. Memories can fool and change us. My brother, Pat, would have recognized these themes in the collection as familiar terrain.

How did the changes in your life (retiring, moving to Florida) affect your writing?

COVID and Moving and Loss sharpened my perception of time and how we live during periods of significant change. One thing I tried to write about because of this change was that no matter where you live, you must never hide or forget your deceased family and friends. It is perilous to deny their presence in our lives.

What poetry are you reading now?

I have been reading and searching for poems with spiritual themes for a project. It is an attempt at an existential spiritual search questioning our relationship to the Divine in all our metaphors of beliefs and doubts. My Genesis or creation poem to enter this discussion is Ode to Dirt by Sharon Olds, then Ode to the Clothesline by Kwame Dawes, an excerpt from the Song of Solomon, Ask Me by William Stafford, Have You Prayed? by Li-Young Lee, Upstairs the Eulogy, Downstairs the Rummage Sale by Yehoshua November, A Violin at Dusk by Lizette Woodworth Reese, The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist by Mary Oliver, Kerr’s Ass by Patrick Kavanaugh, The Call by Ron Rash, A Prayer by Max Errman and Thank You by Ross Gay.

But I am still collecting and refining. I don’t know the shape of the final product, but I will hold “poetry worship” services using these poems where the poets are priests. The congregation will read these poems and explore the human need for something after death and an explanation of divinity. After all, we are “muckers” searching for the Kavanaugh’s “God of imagination.” Perhaps my poem in No True Route, Visitation, fits this mold. 

Why Poetry Matters. Figurative language is how we make sense of our creation, our moment. Poetry compromises the text of all faiths and beliefs. Poetry explores the ground of being like a hungry mole cricket. It’s the stirring language of the Cosmos and the soup spoon. It rises from dirt to sunflower to hearts. Poetry is our first and last breath in our brief lives of verses. Poetry grounds us to the ordinary miracles around us. But I warn you, it’s a mouse in the hole trembling to rush out to nibble on a crumb; satisfying, so risky.

Jasper Presents Fall Lines - a literary convergence Volume IX at Richland Library

Join the Jasper Project on Saturday, March 25 from 2 - 5 pm for the release of Fall Lines - a literary convergence Volume IX at the Main Branch of the Richland Library on Assembly Street.

Poetry and prose accepted for publication in this year’s Fall Lines journal include the following

Fruit – Gil Allen

The turning – Ken Autry

The last battle in Alabama – Ken Autry

Bachman's Warbler – Ken Autry

Bird – Libby Bernardin

with spoiled fruit – Evelyn Berry

Dear Raphael – Al Black

Porcelain doll – Al Black

If I were a man – Cindi Boiter

Prudent – Cindi Boiter

Seamstress – Carolina Bowden

Signs that say what you want them to say (not signs that say what someone else wants you to say) – Lucia Brown

Before we turn on the table saw – Lucia Brown

walking a half-marathon through your hometown – Lucia Brown

Members of the backyard church – Tim Conroy

Nasty Bites – Tim Conroy

How to cut up a chicken – Susan Craig

Touching Wyse's Ferry Bridge – Susan Craig

The Older Poet Yearns to Carpe the Diem – Debra Daniels

Dream Three – Heather Dearmon

Bring Me Something – Heather Dearmon

Across the River - Marlanda DeKine

talking to themselves -  Marlanda DeKine

For my cat, every Sunday afternoon – Graham Duncan

Ghosts in Poems – Jo Angela Edwins

Stricken – Jo Angela Edwins

Nana Lencha – Vera Gomez

You don't know what you don't know – Vera Gomez

Coattails – Kristine Hartvigsen

River – Kristine Hartvigsen

A Quiet Love – Jammie Huynh

A ghazal to my father – Jammie Huynh

Bad Idea Boyfriend, or White Jesus – Shannon Ivey

D. – Suzanne Kamata

Red Bird / Blue Bird – Bentz Kirby

Hunter's Chapel Road – Len Laurin

I love you 3000 – Len Lawson

Crown – Terri McCord

Space – Terri McCord

For a 20% Tip – Rosalie McCracken

"Yes, please" – Melanie McGhee

Cycles – Joseph Mills

Office hours – Joseph Mills

Those of us with bushy white beards – Joseph Mills

So long, Greenie – Eric Morris

Chopin all over her – Eric Morris

Old photos (for Ahmaud Arbery) – Yvette Murray

Thundering shadows – Frances Pearce

Gone to the birds – Glenis Redmond

"Praise how the ordinary turns sacred" – Glenis Redmond

Strangers in a Strange Field – Aida Rogers

Pre-Columbia Intersections – Lawrence Rhu

Meaningless – Michael Rubin

Small things I notice – Randy Spencer

Next Day Now - Randy Spencer

Above the poplars – Arthur Turfa

For the Love of Mz. Joe – Ceille Welch

The Broad River Prize for Prose this year goes to Tim Conroy for his short fiction, Nasty Bites and the Saluda River Prize for Poetry goes to Jo Angela Edwins for her poem, Stricken.

Carla Damron was the adjudicator for the prose prize and Lisa Hammond judged the poetry prize.

Both contributors and the public are invited to attend. Contributors are also invited to read from their included works during the event in the order in which it is published.

Thank you to Carla Damron, Lisa Hammond, Richland Library, the Friends of Richland Library, One Columbia, and Muddy Ford Press for their support of this project.

Announcing Fall Lines Volume IX Winners and Accepted Authors

The Jasper Project is delighted to announce the winners of the 2022 Fall Lines Awards and the accepted submissions to Fall Lines Volume IX.

The Broad River Prize for Prose goes to Tim Conroy for his short fiction, Nasty Bites and the Saluda River Prize for Poetry goes to Jo Angela Edwins for her poem, Stricken.

Fall Lines volume IX will be released on Sunday, February 5th, 2023, at the Main Branch of the Richland Library, 1431 Assembly Street in Columbia, SC. The event will begin at 3 pm and all contributors are invited to read one poem or approximately one page of their published prose. Contributors are welcome to two copies of the journal and additional copies may be purchased for $10 each. Proceeds from purchased journals will help defray the dramatically increased costs of publication. Watch this space for pre-order information.


Poetry and prose accepted for publication in this year’s Fall Lines journal include the following

Fruit – Gil Allen

The turning – Ken Autry

The last battle in Alabama – Ken Autry

Bachman's Warbler – Ken Autry

Bird – Libby Bernardin

with spoiled fruit – Evelyn Berry

Dear Raphael – Al Black

Porcelain doll – Al Black

If I were a man – Cindi Boiter

Prudent – Cindi Boiter

Seamstress – Carolina Bowden

Signs that say what you want them to say (not signs that say what someone else wants you to say) – Lucia Brown

Before we turn on the table saw – Lucia Brown

walking a half-marathon through your hometown – Lucia Brown

Members of the backyard church – Tim Conroy

Nasty Bites – Tim Conroy

How to cut up a chicken – Susan Craig

Touching Wyse's Ferry Bridge – Susan Craig

The Older Poet Yearns to Carpe the Diem – Debra Daniels

Dream Three – Heather Dearmon

Bring Me Something – Heather Dearmon

Across the River - Marlanda DeKine

talking to themselves -  Marlanda DeKine

For my cat, every Sunday afternoon – Graham Duncan

Ghosts in Poems – Jo Angela Edwins

Stricken – Jo Angela Edwins

Nana Lencha – Vera Gomez

You don't know what you don't know – Vera Gomez

Coattails – Kristine Hartvigsen

River – Kristine Hartvigsen

A Quiet Love – Jammie Huynh

A ghazal to my father – Jammie Huynh

Bad Idea Boyfriend, or White Jesus – Shannon Ivey

D. – Suzanne Kamata

Red Bird / Blue Bird – Bentz Kirby

Hunter's Chapel Road – Len Laurin

I love you 3000 – Len Lawson

Crown – Terri McCord

Space – Terri McCord

For a 20% Tip – Rosalie McCracken

"Yes, please" – Melanie McGhee

Cycles – Joseph Mills

Office hours – Joseph Mills

Those of us with bushy white beards – Joseph Mills

So long, Greenie – Eric Morris

Chopin all over her – Eric Morris

Old photos (for Ahmaud Arbery) – Yvette Murray

Thundering shadows – Frances Pearce

Gone to the birds – Glenis Redmond

"Praise how the ordinary turns sacred" – Glenis Redmond

Strangers in a Strange Field – Aida Rogers

Pre-Columbia Intersections – Lawrence Rhu

Meaningless – Michael Rubin

Small things I notice – Randy Spencer

Next Day Now - Randy Spencer

Above the poplars – Arthur Turfa

For the Love of Mz. Joe – Ceille Welch

Congratulations to

Tim Conroy and Jo Angela Edwins

and all the accepted poets and prose writers for

Fall Lines Volume IX!

 

Muddy Ford Press Releases Second Collection in Laureate Series with Ann-Chadwell Humphries’ An Eclipse and a Butcher

“I'm in awe of the masterful clarity, the perfectly weighted brevity of Ann Humphries' poems. There's an immense comfort in her vivid scenes, her people and places so rich in presence, and her clear gaze. … A stunning collection!”

Naomi Shihab Nye, Young People's Poet Laureate

Humphries cover 300cmyk (1) (1).jpg

This month, local poet Ann-Chadwell Humphries is releasing her first collection of poetry with Muddy Ford Press as the second feature of their Laureate Series.

Muddy Ford Press is a family owned publishing company dedicated to providing boutique publishing opportunities particularly to, but not limited to, South Carolina writers, artists, and poets. The founders of the press, husband and wife team Bob Jolley and Cindi Boiter, created the Laureate Series with the goal of initiating relationships across South Carolina poets.

“We wanted to promote mentorship between established poets and beginning poets,” Jolley describes, “So we invite all the poets laureate in SC to choose an emerging poet who they are willing to work with, and the laureate then helps build and edit their protégé’s first book.”

The selection of poets for the Laureate Series is the decision of the South Carolina laureates. The first book in the series, as well as this upcoming collection, were both written by poets selected by Columbia Poet Laureate Ed Madden.

The first collection, Theologies of Terrain, featured poet Tim Conroy. Conroy ruminates that, through this series, Muddy Ford Press provides the guidance and care that only poet laureates can deliver to a poet's first collection.

“I am so happy that Muddy Ford Press selected Ann-Chadwell Humphries as the second poet in their Laureate Series,” Conroy shares, “Ann's poetry raises the bar for all to follow. Her award-winning poetry is lyrical, deeply observed, and sound haunted.”

Ann-Chadwell Humphries - photo courtesy of the author

Ann-Chadwell Humphries - photo courtesy of the author

Several years ago, Humphries was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic condition that caused her vision to get smaller and smaller until she could no longer see. However, while this was an obstacle, it carried with it a gift with which to see the world anew.

While always a lover of literature, Humphries, who had worked in the medical field, had never tried her hand at creative writing. Then, she started taking creative writing classes at the Shepherd’s Center with her friend.

“I remember where I was sitting,” Ann reflects on the day she was first introduced to Mary Oliver’s poetry, “and I thought, ‘I have to do this’.”

This emerging love for poetry became concrete when, in Fall 2016, Humphries audited a graduate poetry workshop with Nikky Finney at the University of South Carolina. This workshop was one of the first times Humphries had the chance to work so closely with her ideas and form.

“It demands careful attention, it demands truth, honesty, and essence,” Humphries remarks on the writing process, “It helps me find goodness.”

Since that workshop, Humphries has published poems in Jasper Magazine, Emrys, Indolent Books, The Collective Eye and more. When Madden and Boiter approached Humphries about the Laureate Series, she had a mix of surprise and pride.

“’What? Really? Me?’ a voice in my head said,” Humphries recalls, “But then I said, ‘Why not me’—I dropped self-doubt at 65.”

With an arsenal of poems and a constant thirst for writing, Humphries knew she had the materials to make a collection, but stitching them together into a book was a different story. Luckily, she had Madden by her side to edit the collection.

"Ann Chadwell Humphries is a poet of many eclipses—celestial, such as the unexpected 'metallic light' beheld with solar glasses, but also eclipses of vision as her sight was lost later in life to the ravages of a recessive gene. And though these poems beautifully document that loss and its attendant difficulties, An Eclipse is the record of a woman who sees with her entire being.”

Nickole Brown, author of Fanny Says and

Jessica Jacobs, author of Take Me With You, Wherever You’re Going

Madden says that when Humphries first sent him a selection of poems, his priority was to give her a sense of her voice and an idea of some overriding themes that were running through her work. Specifically, his work as an editor is a two-fold process.

“I divided poems into yes and no and maybe, and I started arranging poems around my living room in groups that seemed to work together, to speak to each other,” Madden reflects. “Ann was a master at revising, always attuned to line and sound and image, and I enjoyed working with her.”

What stood out for Madden in this collection were the poems about solar eclipses. Once he read them, he knew they could anchor the book, punctuating it with the seen and unseen.

“Thinking how one thing can eclipse another seemed such a resonant theme for her memory poems, her family and relationship poems, and her poems about coming to terms with blindness,” Madden shares. “Once I had those three anchor poems, the book seemed to almost organize itself, like iron shavings organizing themselves around the poles of a magnet.”

From her experience with Madden, Humphries learned valuable lessons, not just about this collection but herself as a poet.

“It was a willingness to say yes, and to put myself in the position where I allowed myself to receive kindness,” Humphries says of the experience, “It was better than I ever imagined. To be in the company of good writers who are helping me grow, I really flourished in that.”

Of course, there is more than just the poems. Humphries worked with her dear friend, Susan Craig, and her niece, Eleanor Baker, and together they crafted a cover, featuring an image from Humphries’ childhood on the front.

Once Madden and Humphries finalized selection of poems and a cover, it went to Boiter and Jolley for edits. Boiter copyedited, proofed, and built the book, then Jolley laid it out in In Design before sending it to the printer, where he ensured the final product was as it was supposed to be.

“Ann Humphries’ debut collection of poems, An Eclipse and a Butcher, is anchored by poems about the solar eclipse, which serve as the perfect metaphor for the blindness experienced by the poet.  But Humphries tells us that “blindness provides insight.” … Humphries is a survivor, and we are so lucky she has chosen to share her words and her wisdom.”

Marjory Wentworth, former South Carolina

Poet Laureate

Now, after months of work from all parties, a book, a collection of stories, recollections, dreams, and hopes has come together.

From the titular poem, “An Eclipse and a Butcher,” that recalls a July childhood day in 1963 to a reminisce of her own father’s birth to the experience of tracing the waves of Van Gogh’s art, Humphries’ collection takes the reader through the throws and thrills of life with a final promise to walk with you wherever you may go.

“It’s myself. It’s a piece of me. It’s an honest gift,” Humphries declares. “It’s a piece of beauty in the world where there’s a lot of ugliness.”

The launch event for An Eclipse and a Butcher will take place via Zoom on November 22nd at 4:00pm. Muddy Ford Press will not sponsor any public readings until after pandemic precautions in the area have been lifted. The book will be $15 and available for purchase via Amazon, BandN.com, and via the author.

By Christina Xan

Columbia's Favorite Poetry - Today, featuring Tim Conroy

curl your toes/ into the grass/

national poetry month.jpg

In celebration of National Poetry Month the Jasper Project invited several artists, writers, and leaders in the Columbia arts community to share with us their favorite poems and most of them generously accepted.

We’ve put together this collection of our favorite poems and will be sharing them with you, poem by poem, day by day, over the month of April. Some of the poems are old and traditional, others are new and inventive. Some are whimsical, others are insightful. Some rhyme. Some don’t.

What they all have in common is that someone you know loves that poem – and this gives us such lovely insight into the soul of our community.

Thank you to everyone who shared their poetry with us.

And Happy National Poetry Month from Jasper.

~~

Today, we're featuring poet Tim Conroy.

~~

 

My favorite poem is Thank You by Ross Gay.  I love poetry that reminds us of our frailty and insignificance and meanwhile calls us to be grateful. 

 

Thank You

BY ROSS GAY

 

If you find yourself half naked

and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,

again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says

you are the air of the now and gone, that says

all you love will turn to dust,

and will meet you there, do not

raise your fist. Do not raise

your small voice against it. And do not

take cover. Instead, curl your toes

into the grass, watch the cloud

ascending from your lips. Walk

through the garden's dormant splendor.

Say only, thank you.

Thank you.

 

Tim Conroy is a Columbia-based poet, retired educator, and a founding board member of the Pat Conroy Literary Center. He is the author of Theologies of Terrain published in 2017 by Muddy Ford Press.

 

 

 

Tim Conroy

Tim Conroy