Timothy Green was born in Upstate New York in 1980. A Rush Rhees and Take Five Scholar at the University of Rochester, Green studied English, biochemistry, psychology, and eastern philosophy, and worked as a technician in the Turner Lab, supporting research on mRNA binding structures. He graduated magna cum laude in 2003, earning awards from Phi Beta Kappa, the Golden Key National Honors Society, and the Academy of American Poets.
For two years Green remained in Rochester, working as a group home counselor for adults with schizophrenia.
In early 2004, Green began a conversation with Stellasue Lee, poetry editor of RATTLE, a literary journal based in Los Angeles, which led to a long-distance, part-time job as assistant to the poetry editor. Six months later he was offered the full-time position of assistant editor, and moved across the country to California.
About American Fractal, Virginia Konchan has written: “Green’s debut collection American Fractal picks up where scientific discourse leaves off, exhibiting a rare display of confidence in this integral unity, as a metaphor for poetic practice, and as manifest in varying degrees in Nature, each individual, and humankind.”
Even
So
Our cat cries at night for no reason.
A yawl through her one contiguous
room until I find her there she is in
the bathtub looking lost there she is
in the hall. It’s amazing light from
a bulb will find you everywhere
you look its looking back in every
shade and— Imagine color without
a shape. Imagine a wall at the lip
of the visible universe in all directions
equidistant now touch it bowl on top
of bowl a bell and you its clapper.
When I drop our cat she goes right
back to yawling lost along whatever
wall I found her. Sometimes the rock’s
so big you build the house around it.
And because the house is there
the street is there, and all the houses
on the street are there all the people
all the gaps between the people and
the gaps between the gaps are gaping
open oceans learned to hug the land.
Our cat cries at night for no reason.
A yawl through her one contiguous
room until I find her there she is in
the bathtub looking lost there she is
in the hall. It’s amazing light from
a bulb will find you everywhere
you look its looking back in every
shade and— Imagine color without
a shape. Imagine a wall at the lip
of the visible universe in all directions
equidistant now touch it bowl on top
of bowl a bell and you its clapper.
When I drop our cat she goes right
back to yawling lost along whatever
wall I found her. Sometimes the rock’s
so big you build the house around it.
And because the house is there
the street is there, and all the houses
on the street are there all the people
all the gaps between the people and
the gaps between the gaps are gaping
open oceans learned to hug the land.
© 2012
Timothy Green
Timothy Green was a Featured Poet who read his poetry at the March 2012 Second Sunday Poetry Series
Timothy Green was a Featured Poet who read his poetry at the March 2012 Second Sunday Poetry Series