Magazine
Jason Baldinger: “a time capsule of dust”
Stephen Barile: “Cedar Crest Cove”
Jane-Rebecca Cannarella: “Quilted Rainbows”
Lorraine Caputo: “And That Wind Twirls”
Rick Christiansen: “Borrowed Blood”
John Dorsey: “Jerry Garcia & German Root Beer”
Howie Good: “Uketopia”
John Grey: “Flower People”
Judy Lorenzen: “Anyway”
Tim Peeler: “Untitled”
LB Sedlacek: “Art vs Life (Dream 09/19/15)”
Dead Birds
I think of Lynyrd Skynyrd
With all their little boy names.
Ronnie, Billy, Artie, what
Hardscrabble hit licks like ax
In oak, famous for
Discourteous whickering,
For stomping on Jagger’s tongue,
For unbecoming without
Their boss man’s whipping voice,
No one to hold the kite string
In the storm sky when they die.
About the Author: A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for contributions to baseball literature, Tim Peeler has also twice been a Casey Award Finalist (baseball book of the year) and a finalist for the SIBA Award. He lives with his wife, Penny in Hickory, North Carolina, where he directs the academic assistance programs at Catawba Valley Community College. He has published close to a thousand poems, stories, essays, and reviews in magazines, journals, and anthologies and has written sixteen books and three chapbooks. He has five books in the permanent collection at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, NY. His recent books include Rough Beast, an Appalachian verse novel about a southern gangster named Larry Ledbetter, Henry River: An American Ruin, poems about an abandoned mill town and film site for The Hunger Games, and Wild in the Strike Zone: Baseball Poems, his third volume of baseball-related poems.
Image Credit: Anonymous Wasservogel (Water Bird) (1910–12) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
Tim Peeler and the Life of the Poem
By Mike James
…
Frank Bidart once commented in an interview that an emphasis on voice isn’t fashionable
in contemporary poetry. That idea might go a long way towards explaining the lack of
appreciation for Tim Peeler’s work since Peeler’s poetry is emphatically about southern
voices and southern characters. Peeler is more original than fashionable. He is of the
DIY, autodidact, mountain bred, and baseball referencing, fried bologna school of
American poetry. He is also the only member.
Some books don’t fit into categories. And some poets don’t. For a number of years now,
Tim Peeler has been creating unique, character driven poetry sequences about folks who
are neither proud nor ashamed of their poverty. Peeler doesn’t make a fetish of the blue
collar. Poverty and wealth are just reference points. Economics is part of what defines his
characters, but it is not the whole definition.
The emphasis on character is why Peeler is so hard to categorize. Though he is as
southern as moonshine, pine trees, and molasses, his character-driven writing is closer to
Chekhov than Dickey. He begins and ends with a person in a specific situation. There
may not be a problem to solve, but there is definitely an incident to examine.
There is a texture to Peeler’s poetry which comes from his deep knowledge and
appreciation of vernacular. He can use words like “whatnot” and “fixin” and make them
an integral part of the poem without drawing attention. He is not a flashy poet, but a
subtle one. He draws the reader in and pulls rabbits out of every hat he comes across. He
does this while making the reader care for characters who are often either left out of
poetry or reduced to stereotypes. There are no “types” in Peeler’s poetry. There are only
people.
Many poets are addicted to the idea of the blazing line. They are in love with anthology
pieces. Tim Peeler is not that type of poet. In his work, poetry happens as part of the
everyday. It seems to be dictated from characters at a diner, rather than created by a
solitary individual. This is not to say that the accessibility of Peeler’s sleight-of-hand
poetics is easy. He simply makes it look that way. His poems are as clear as mountain air
and just as easy to take in.
About the Author: Mike James makes his home outside Nashville, Tennessee. He has published in numerous magazines, large and small, throughout the country. His poetry collections include: Leftover Distances (Luchador), Parades (Alien Buddha), Jumping Drawbridges in Technicolor (Blue Horse), and Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog.) In April, Red Hawk published his 20th collection, Portable Light: Poems 1991-2021.
Image Credit: “Craggy mountains and Dome from Rich Mountain, North Carolina, U. S. A.” (1905) public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
About the Author: A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for contributions to baseball literature, Tim Peeler has also twice been a Casey Award Finalist (baseball book of the year) and a finalist for the SIBA Award. He lives with his wife, Penny in Hickory, North Carolina, where he directs the academic assistance programs at Catawba Valley Community College. He has published close to a thousand poems, stories, essays, and reviews in magazines, journals, and anthologies and has written sixteen books and three chapbooks. He has five books in the permanent collection at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, NY. His recent books include Rough Beast, an Appalachian verse novel about a southern gangster named Larry Ledbetter, Henry River: An American Ruin, poems about an abandoned mill town and film site for The Hunger Games, and Wild in the Strike Zone: Baseball Poems, his third volume of baseball-related poems.
Image Credit: John Collier Jr, “Childersburg, Alabama. Rooms for rent” (1942) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Sturm and Drang You start a poem the same way My father-in-law lit the grill. Fill a brown paper grocery bag With a whole measure of briquettes. Soak the bag and contents With a liberal amount Of lawnmower gas. Set the bag in the middle Of the round grill top. From daringly close distance Toss a lit wooden match Onto the gas-soaked bag. My oldest son at four Watched the explosion From a guarded distance: Frightened, thrilled, Fighting back tears. It was the first time He’d seen poetry.
About the Author: A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for contributions to baseball literature, Tim Peeler has also twice been a Casey Award Finalist (baseball book of the year) and a finalist for the SIBA Award. He lives with his wife, Penny in Hickory, North Carolina, where he directs the academic assistance programs at Catawba Valley Community College. He has published close to a thousand poems, stories, essays, and reviews in magazines, journals, and anthologies and has written sixteen books and three chapbooks. He has five books in the permanent collection at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, NY. His recent books include Rough Beast, an Appalachian verse novel about a southern gangster named Larry Ledbetter, Henry River: An American Ruin, poems about an abandoned mill town and film site for The Hunger Games, and Wild in the Strike Zone: Baseball Poems, his third volume of baseball-related poems.
Image Credit: Giuseppe Arcimboldo “Fire” (1566)
Last Poem Before Zoloft
Is that an ink pen or a bullet?
I can’t tell, you know how long
Are some of those shells.
I see a teenaged boy child
Listening to “Any Major Dude”
Thinking of when to come out.
Outside the rain drums
The triple pane basement window.
Inside a half-crippled black lab
Watches a baseball game.
I ran through what seemed like
An ocean of time to get here
To find myself invisible.
The ages will be the ages
As the rat snake snugs himself
Around the water pipe in the crawlspace.
What do you mean, how will we go on?
We will wear goggles.
We will carry spears.
About the Author: A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for contributions to baseball literature, Tim Peeler has also twice been a Casey Award Finalist (baseball book of the year) and a finalist for the SIBA Award. He lives with his wife, Penny in Hickory, North Carolina, where he directs the academic assistance programs at Catawba Valley Community College. He has published close to a thousand poems, stories, essays, and reviews in magazines, journals, and anthologies and has written sixteen books and three chapbooks. He has five books in the permanent collection at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, NY. His recent books include Rough Beast, an Appalachian verse novel about a southern gangster named Larry Ledbetter, Henry River: An American Ruin, poems about an abandoned mill town and film site for The Hunger Games, and Wild in the Strike Zone: Baseball Poems, his third volume of baseball-related poems.
More By Tim Peeler:
Ballers 2, the Star’s Monologue 3
Image Credit: Robert Shymanski: “Attic, crawl space, view east and southeast from north center (part 1 of triptych view) – Hegeler Carus Mansion, 1307 Seventh Street, La Salle, La Salle County, IL”(2008) The Library of Congress
Scrap Dog 27
When a nearly 79 year old man
Dies with a .26 blood alcohol level,
The angels of the old country
Swoop down to carry him high
Above the fir trees and the hills
Over the mini-mansions
And the condo riddled ski slopes
Past the eagle nests
And caves full of wintering bears.
Having sparred with indifferent
Doctors, callous insurance providers,
Having shed abandonment
And heartlessness,
Having opted for vodka
To wrestle misdiagnosis,
Looking one more time
Across the cabin deck
Into the darkness
Where the angels
Dangled their legs
From the roof of the sky.
About the Author: A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for contributions to baseball literature, Tim Peeler has also twice been a Casey Award Finalist (baseball book of the year) and a finalist for the SIBA Award. He lives with his wife, Penny in Hickory, North Carolina, where he directs the academic assistance programs at Catawba Valley Community College. He has published close to a thousand poems, stories, essays, and reviews in magazines, journals, and anthologies and has written sixteen books and three chapbooks. He has five books in the permanent collection at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, NY. His recent books include Rough Beast, an Appalachian verse novel about a southern gangster named Larry Ledbetter, Henry River: An American Ruin, poems about an abandoned mill town and film site for The Hunger Games, and Wild in the Strike Zone: Baseball Poems, his third volume of baseball-related poems.
More By Tim Peeler:
Ballers 2, the Star’s Monologue 3
Image Credit: Carleton Watkins “Solar Eclipse” (1889) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.
Drive-in 21
Through the pounding thunderstorm,
They endured blue lightning flashes,
Great drops of steaming rain,
And on the screen, the first of
A double feature, Invasion
Of the Blood Farmers,
A film shot so poorly
That day and night shots
Were jumbled together;
So cheap, the actors were paid
With six packs of beer
To play blood-seeking druids
On a mission to save their queen.
They gritted their teeth
As their wipers slashed,
The speaker crackled, and
The parking lot emptied
Of all but the stoners
And the crazies awaiting
The second feature,
Shriek of the Mutilated,
Wherein grad students
Undertake a field trip
To Boot Island in search of Yeti,
And the hardcores were rewarded
When the summer skies cleared
And fell silent as the hairy
Beast began his carnage.
About the Author: A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for contributions to baseball literature, Tim Peeler has also twice been a Casey Award Finalist (baseball book of the year) and a finalist for the SIBA Award. He lives with his wife, Penny in Hickory, North Carolina, where he directs the academic assistance programs at Catawba Valley Community College. He has published close to a thousand poems, stories, essays, and reviews in magazines, journals, and anthologies and has written sixteen books and three chapbooks. He has five books in the permanent collection at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, NY. His recent books include Rough Beast, an Appalachian verse novel about a southern gangster named Larry Ledbetter, Henry River: An American Ruin, poems about an abandoned mill town and film site for The Hunger Games, and Wild in the Strike Zone: Baseball Poems, his third volume of baseball-related poems.
More By Tim Peeler:
Ballers 2, the Star’s Monologue 3
Image Credit: John Margolies “Augusta Drive-in Theater, Route 11, Augusta, Maine” (1984) The Library of Congress
Larry
There’s an owl-faced hillbilly boy staring at me across
The Cracker Barrel dining room where I’m sat back to the fireplace,
Waiting on pecan-crusted catfish, cornbread,
Collards, contemporary country music with its TV accent
Bursting forth like busted springs—that boy
Probably thinks I’m as old as the shit hanging on wall
To authenticate somehow this cattle drive of victuals,
And in the old days I would have frightened him or challenged
His daddy to step outside, but now I know I am just
Another spectacle pinned to the walls of the living
To someway make it look real.
.
About the Author: A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for contributions to baseball literature, Tim Peeler has also twice been a Casey Award Finalist (baseball book of the year) and a finalist for the SIBA Award. He lives with his wife, Penny in Hickory, North Carolina, where he directs the academic assistance programs at Catawba Valley Community College. He has published close to a thousand poems, stories, essays, and reviews in magazines, journals, and anthologies and has written sixteen books and three chapbooks. He has five books in the permanent collection at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, NY. His recent books include Rough Beast, an Appalachian verse novel about a southern gangster named Larry Ledbetter, Henry River: An American Ruin, poems about an abandoned mill town and film site for The Hunger Games, and Wild in the Strike Zone: Baseball Poems, his third volume of baseball-related poems.
Paramnesia 2
The deluge of nighttime dog barks
Pauses for the after storm gutter drip.
There was a game, he says, can’t
Remember if it was 47 or 8, but we had
A two run lead in the bottom of the ninth.
Crickets like a crowd roar and the faint
Leaving of a train across the river gorge.
You got a light. Thanks. Well they got
The bases loaded, drunk as they say.
The old man’s profile, a Hemingway
Hillbilly with bifocals in porch light.
And coach, he hollers for me to get in there
To pitch to this Babe Ruth no neck left hander.
A bawling cow somewhere, the Judge’s braying
Donkeys, hungry in their dark pasture.
So I say a little prayer ‘cause I believed back then,
Hid the ball in my glove behind my back.
A neighbor’s old pickup truck inching
Through the front yard of his trailer.
I throw it hard and outside at the knees.
He swings and misses. Lights was so bad.
An owl in the maple top, sounding out a
Whole summer of loneliness.
When he struck at the third bad pitch, that was
The game, but then he come after me with his bat.
A Hmong woman across the field, singing by the
Lanterns in her vegetable garden.
Our first baseman, Rosenbluth, stopped
Him out between the bases.
The hiss of traffic on the wet road,
River like a belly against the old dam.
We piled on him, beat the shit out of him
Before his teammates got out there, must have
Been 48, same year I met your mother.
–
About the Author: A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for contributions to baseball literature, Tim Peeler has also twice been a Casey Award Finalist (baseball book of the year) and a finalist for the SIBA Award. He lives with his wife, Penny in Hickory, North Carolina, where he directs the academic assistance programs at Catawba Valley Community College. He has published close to a thousand poems, stories, essays, and reviews in magazines, journals, and anthologies and has written sixteen books and three chapbooks. He has five books in the permanent collection at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, NY. His recent books include Rough Beast, an Appalachian verse novel about a southern gangster named Larry Ledbetter, Henry River: An American Ruin, poems about an abandoned mill town and film site for The Hunger Games, and Wild in the Strike Zone: Baseball Poems, his third volume of baseball-related poems.
As It Ought To Be 