I really enjoyed meeting new friends and seeing old ones at the reading at Buxton Books. Polly and Tiger are the engaging owners of this wonderful and intimate bookstore. Their staff were exceptionally kind and made this a special evening for everyone. My friend, the Poet Laureate of South Carolina, the incredible Marjory Wentworth gifted the audience with a few of her poems and provided a generous and unforgettable introduction. Below are a few of Marjory’s comments.
I am thrilled to introduce my friend Tim Conroy this evening. As some of you know, Tim was a special education teacher for many years. You also know that only patient, big hearted people become special ed teachers. That’s Tim. Big hearted, gentle, and just full of love. And love in many manifestations is the subject of the poems included in his collection of poetry, Theologies of Terrain. Tough love of family and all the conflicted memories of childhood love of place and reverence for the natural world. There’s a heartfelt honesty at the core of these poems, which must me a Conroy trait!
Despite the grief which inspired many of these poems there’s also the antitheses – celebration of joy found in the ordinary things that surround us, which is the great gift that poets bring us. In a poem called “Ring of Fire” Tim describes birds who taught him a thousand words for beauty birds that are bright/yellow or green or pale lemon or shaggy/but all sun blessed, sun kissed and later in the poem when he talks about the deaths of his woods-walking grandfather and sweet sun-kissed mother he describes the inevitable refusal to lie dormant in grief reminding us of the spiritual healing we find in the natural world….a world from which we are increasingly disconnected. This impulse characterizes many of the poems in this collection.
Thank you, Marjory Wentworth, for your poetry, words, and heart. Thank you for those that came to the
reading and thank you reader for buying my book.
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