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    Why Trees Stay Outside
    Why Trees Stay Outside
    Why Trees Stay Outside
    Ebook107 pages40 minutes

    Why Trees Stay Outside

    By Terry Tierney

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    About this ebook

    In Terry Tierney's second poetry collection, Why Trees Stay Outside, voices emerge from our social, political, and natural environment, including perspectives we thought were inanimate or at least insentient, some human, some spiritual. Through provocative imagery, they ask how we can save ourselves, find love, and find meaning given our current relationships with one another and the earth. The chorus of questions radiates with occasional remorse, but the poems also flash with redemption and humor. By exposing features of our physical and personal environments, their wealth of perspectives, and our innate desire to create and destroy, these accessible poems dare us to reconsider our assumptions and find a way forward.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUnsolicited Press
    Release dateMar 20, 2024
    ISBN9798223615187
    Why Trees Stay Outside

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      Book preview

      Why Trees Stay Outside - Terry Tierney

      Dedication

      So many people have supported and encouraged me during my journey that I risk leaving someone out, so please forgive any omissions.

      My list always starts with Michaelyn Burnette, followed by my graduate school chums, including Jeffrey Portnoy, Kristina Straub, William Ellenburg, Rand and Beth Brandes, and our poet laureate Nathalie Anderson; lifelong friends Allan and Barbara Urbanic, Dave Fogarty, and Felicity Bensch; my poetry support system including Bruce Isaacson and Poetry Promise, Jan Steckel, Keith Gaboury, the California Writer’s Club, and the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto; the tireless and helpful editors and team at Unsolicited Press; my tolerant and loving family including Joan Northup, Janet Lafayette, Patricia Dahlman, and particularly John Tierney who gifted me the title poem; and my eager hiking buddy, Pearl, who often hears my words first.

      Acknowledgements

      The Author expresses his deepest gratitude to the literary journals and anthologies where these poems first appeared.

      Ashes on Water Trouvaille

      Birth Cave Metaworker

      Cleaning Out the Shed Sheila Na Gig

      Ghost Machine Metaworker

      His Sweatshirt Scapegoat Review

      Hunter and Prey Commuter Lit

      I Can’t Get My Hands Clean Remington Review

      It Starts with Hemingway Remington Review

      The James Webb Telescope Detects a Heartbeat Bellevue Literary Review

      Kissing My Grandmother at Her Funeral Words and Whispers

      Lint Reed Magazine

      Man in Glass Rogue Agent

      1918 Reunion at Mountain View Cemetery The Town, An Anthology of Oakland Poets

      Peeling the Handle Front Porch Review

      Redwoods Whisper The Town, An Anthology of Oakland Poets

      River Walk Green Light Literary Journal

      Robot Writes a Love Poem Typishly

      Rumor of Love The Blood Pudding

      Spark Amethyst Review

      Vacant Lot The Town, An Anthology of Oakland Poets

      Waiting Out the Storm Poppy Road Review

      Why Trees Stay Outside Rust & Moth

      Poems

      Poems

      1—Faces in the Waiting Room

      Front Line

      Lint

      Why Trees Stay Outside

      Starlings at Sunset

      Ghost Machine

      Factory of Silent Women

      I Can’t Get My Hands Clean

      Fallen

      Next Wave

      Kissing My Grandmother at Her Funeral

      It Starts with Hemingway

      His Sweatshirt

      Einstein’s Hair in Quarantine

      Spark

      My Genes Look Good on You

      What Your Mother Saved

      1918 Reunion at Mountain View Cemetery

      2—Ashes on Water

      Map and Compass

      The Last Scarecrow

      Planning My Garden

      Redwoods Whisper

      Woodpecker

      Psychotherapy After Dinner

      Questioning the Oranges

      Photograph Smile

      Morning Prayer

      The Secret of Eternal Life

      Birth Cave

      Wake-Up Kiss

      Ashes on Water

      No Time Left

      A Father’s Prayer

      Chainsaw Concerto

      Painting a Still-life at Summer Solstice

      3—Heartbeat

      The James Webb Telescope Detects a Heartbeat

      Car Trouble

      Waiting Out the Storm

      Black Ice

      When God Collects the Rent

      Cleaning Out the Shed

      Running Away from Home

      Coltrane Freeze

      Papier-mâché of Promises

      The Wait

      Campfire

      Owl on the Roof

      River Walk

      Wind Power

      Man in Glass

      New Year Morning 2021

      Weatherman

      4—Inheritance

      Things You Learn in Bootcamp

      Hunter and Prey

      Inheritance

      Vacant Lot

      Bureaucracy on the Beach

      Maybe the Sun

      Peeling the Handle

      Footsteps

      Rose Boy

      Letter from Home

      I Died to Write This Poem

      Fear of Spring

      Rumor of Love

      Again the Supermoon

      Correction

      Robot Writes a Love Poem

      Interview for a Job as Poet

      About the Author

      About the Press

      1—Faces in the Waiting Room

      Front Line

      In the waiting room at the hospital

      the narthex where we enter the world and leave

      where a man in loose khakis

      pushes a vacuum too fast

      to pick up name tags, crumbs, tissues,

      gravel from the parking lot

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