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    Steve Timm Un storia 978-1-60964-035-4 " Steve Timm’s word spectrum is brave, unnerving, dazzling, commodious; with it he composes an elegantly minimalist poetics, humorously charted in one of the most satisfying TOCs I’ve read in a long time. Suggesting neo-Joycean abundance, it leads one instead to sculpted poems of unsparing leanness. They can be stunningly evocative, or comic, or wise, or serene, or any combination thereof. I.e., Un storia is a remarkable book. Its mixture of grace and daring (line breaks that are truly wake up calls!) gives enormous pleasure as it unyieldingly, good-naturedly plays with an impressive number of entrenched expectations. —Joan Retallack If Clark Coolidge had a background in linguistics and Jack Spicer knew how to use the bassoon and Gertrude Stein had lived in a land of Swiss misses and misters instead of an atelier in Paris, we might get close to explaining Steve Timm’s poems and poetics. But then we’d be leaving out his love of puns—especially bad ones—his irritation with the dullards in charge, and his great ability to better explain the “living condition” by reversals and fractures of common sense. The title alone gets to one of the central ticks of Timm, with his usage of knowingly ungrammatical agreement between the Italian male article un and the female storia. Apart from the all too human humor of gendering words, he is highlighting a friction, or the fiction of friction, or the friction of fiction. He doesn’t like the easy and clean. If the Marx Bros. knew Spanish, if Jaap Blonk was American, etc. If the world were a soulful place with justice for all, and all for one, we probably wouldn’t need a him like Timm. But we do. Oh, Gawd, do we do. —James Wagner A finery set of punctures you will not find. Steve Timm pinched these poems of poise and waggish flame right after leaving the first dawn bird factory where he’d been tinkering kerosene into arrows keening owl logic unseen and...scene. Timm’s Italian peeps are all thumbs smeared with memes—terse though language-lavish cue cards for the slalom tyre crawling salmon urgent down along you and your quote unquote erstwhile low road bones. Right now or by noon, you’ll be in the wine creek with the sound of an Italian gargling, which you will herald as all waterfall shortly or by noon. Or: There goes Steve Timm on a Vespa with orders from the thirsty to catch every raindrop on a contact lens that fell from the head of the last seer with the swerve gear, and the truth is Timm catches everyone, slakes everyone, sleight-of-hands a ringer where a rung groaned. Or: Go ask the straight road begging for an oxbow from Timm. Gather these here where you’ve found them on this olive, lava earth. If ever you should will a shelter worthy of this world’s crooked sky, let these poems remind you that velvet hammers feel too. Rarest medicine man, Timm heals you with the same stuff by which he wounds your rutted purl, which brings me around to the driving sail: all aquavit wit aside, the highest totem herein stands for aphoristic-grace-potlatch-heart. Finally, I have not read a more gifting collection in years. —Abraham Smith" Steve Timm is the author of a previous book, Disparity (available as an e-book from BlazeVOX.com), and three chapbooks (one of which, ’n’altra storio, is also available online at bathroommagazine.files.wordpress.com). He teaches English as a second language at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been studying Italian part-time and thanks his teachers for their patience and forbearance. For those qualities and so much more, he especially thanks his wife Sue, who started all of this in 2007 by saying, “Why not?”

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    Steve Timm Un storia 978-1-60964-035-4 " Steve Timm’s word spectrum is brave, unnerving, dazzling, commodious; with it he composes an elegantly minimalist poetics, humorously charted in one of the most satisfying TOCs I’ve read in a long time. Suggesting neo-Joycean abundance, it leads one instead to sculpted poems of unsparing leanness. They can be stunningly evocative, or comic, or wise, or serene, or any combination thereof. I.e., Un storia is a remarkable book. Its mixture of grace and daring (line breaks that are truly wake up calls!) gives enormous pleasure as it unyieldingly, good-naturedly plays with an impressive number of entrenched expectations. —Joan Retallack If Clark Coolidge had a background in linguistics and Jack Spicer knew how to use the bassoon and Gertrude Stein had lived in a land of Swiss misses and misters instead of an atelier in Paris, we might get close to explaining Steve Timm’s poems and poetics. But then we’d be leaving out his love of puns—especially bad ones—his irritation with the dullards in charge, and his great ability to better explain the “living condition” by reversals and fractures of common sense. The title alone gets to one of the central ticks of Timm, with his usage of knowingly ungrammatical agreement between the Italian male article un and the female storia. Apart from the all too human humor of gendering words, he is highlighting a friction, or the fiction of friction, or the friction of fiction. He doesn’t like the easy and clean. If the Marx Bros. knew Spanish, if Jaap Blonk was American, etc. If the world were a soulful place with justice for all, and all for one, we probably wouldn’t need a him like Timm. But we do. Oh, Gawd, do we do. —James Wagner A finery set of punctures you will not find. Steve Timm pinched these poems of poise and waggish flame right after leaving the first dawn bird factory where he’d been tinkering kerosene into arrows keening owl logic unseen and...scene. Timm’s Italian peeps are all thumbs smeared with memes—terse though language-lavish cue cards for the slalom tyre crawling salmon urgent down along you and your quote unquote erstwhile low road bones. Right now or by noon, you’ll be in the wine creek with the sound of an Italian gargling, which you will herald as all waterfall shortly or by noon. Or: There goes Steve Timm on a Vespa with orders from the thirsty to catch every raindrop on a contact lens that fell from the head of the last seer with the swerve gear, and the truth is Timm catches everyone, slakes everyone, sleight-of-hands a ringer where a rung groaned. Or: Go ask the straight road begging for an oxbow from Timm. Gather these here where you’ve found them on this olive, lava earth. If ever you should will a shelter worthy of this world’s crooked sky, let these poems remind you that velvet hammers feel too. Rarest medicine man, Timm heals you with the same stuff by which he wounds your rutted purl, which brings me around to the driving sail: all aquavit wit aside, the highest totem herein stands for aphoristic-grace-potlatch-heart. Finally, I have not read a more gifting collection in years. —Abraham Smith" Steve Timm is the author of a previous book, Disparity (available as an e-book from BlazeVOX.com), and three chapbooks (one of which, ’n’altra storio, is also available online at bathroommagazine.files.wordpress.com). He teaches English as a second language at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been studying Italian part-time and thanks his teachers for their patience and forbearance. For those qualities and so much more, he especially thanks his wife Sue, who started all of this in 2007 by saying, “Why not?”

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    201 views15 pages

    Un Storia by Steve Timm Book Preview

    Uploaded by

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Steve Timm Un storia 978-1-60964-035-4 " Steve Timm’s word spectrum is brave, unnerving, dazzling, commodious; with it he composes an elegantly minimalist poetics, humorously charted in one of the most satisfying TOCs I’ve read in a long time. Suggesting neo-Joycean abundance, it leads one instead to sculpted poems of unsparing leanness. They can be stunningly evocative, or comic, or wise, or serene, or any combination thereof. I.e., Un storia is a remarkable book. Its mixture of grace and daring (line breaks that are truly wake up calls!) gives enormous pleasure as it unyieldingly, good-naturedly plays with an impressive number of entrenched expectations. —Joan Retallack If Clark Coolidge had a background in linguistics and Jack Spicer knew how to use the bassoon and Gertrude Stein had lived in a land of Swiss misses and misters instead of an atelier in Paris, we might get close to explaining Steve Timm’s poems and poetics. But then we’d be leaving out his love of puns—especially bad ones—his irritation with the dullards in charge, and his great ability to better explain the “living condition” by reversals and fractures of common sense. The title alone gets to one of the central ticks of Timm, with his usage of knowingly ungrammatical agreement between the Italian male article un and the female storia. Apart from the all too human humor of gendering words, he is highlighting a friction, or the fiction of friction, or the friction of fiction. He doesn’t like the easy and clean. If the Marx Bros. knew Spanish, if Jaap Blonk was American, etc. If the world were a soulful place with justice for all, and all for one, we probably wouldn’t need a him like Timm. But we do. Oh, Gawd, do we do. —James Wagner A finery set of punctures you will not find. Steve Timm pinched these poems of poise and waggish flame right after leaving the first dawn bird factory where he’d been tinkering kerosene into arrows keening owl logic unseen and...scene. Timm’s Italian peeps are all thumbs smeared with memes—terse though language-lavish cue cards for the slalom tyre crawling salmon urgent down along you and your quote unquote erstwhile low road bones. Right now or by noon, you’ll be in the wine creek with the sound of an Italian gargling, which you will herald as all waterfall shortly or by noon. Or: There goes Steve Timm on a Vespa with orders from the thirsty to catch every raindrop on a contact lens that fell from the head of the last seer with the swerve gear, and the truth is Timm catches everyone, slakes everyone, sleight-of-hands a ringer where a rung groaned. Or: Go ask the straight road begging for an oxbow from Timm. Gather these here where you’ve found them on this olive, lava earth. If ever you should will a shelter worthy of this world’s crooked sky, let these poems remind you that velvet hammers feel too. Rarest medicine man, Timm heals you with the same stuff by which he wounds your rutted purl, which brings me around to the driving sail: all aquavit wit aside, the highest totem herein stands for aphoristic-grace-potlatch-heart. Finally, I have not read a more gifting collection in years. —Abraham Smith" Steve Timm is the author of a previous book, Disparity (available as an e-book from BlazeVOX.com), and three chapbooks (one of which, ’n’altra storio, is also available online at bathroommagazine.files.wordpress.com). He teaches English as a second language at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been studying Italian part-time and thanks his teachers for their patience and forbearance. For those qualities and so much more, he especially thanks his wife Sue, who started all of this in 2007 by saying, “Why not?”

    Copyright:

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 15

    Un storia

    Steve Timm

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Buffalo, New York

    Un storia by Steve Timm Copyright 2010 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza Cover photograph taken in Spoleto, Italy, by Susan Hoops First Edition ISBN: 978-1-60964-035-4 Library of Congress Control Number 2010931951 BlazeVOX [books] 303 Bedford Ave Buffalo, NY 14216 Editor@blazevox.org

    \
    p ublisher of weird little books

    BlazeVOX [ books ]
    blazevox.org
    2 4 6 8 0 9 7 5 3 1

    Prefaze
    Ap parently just a mat ter of saying so me thing a nything sands listening or only that isnt clear. Just. Try that, that. A language say or fuck? The trouble with beginning. The trouble with beginnings. Fuck the both of them no question. The mediam thing, the verging. The reacquisition of blindness, the relosing of hearing and speech unto the very scomfort of ante nnaedness.

    11

    First Chapter Sense owl


    Approxly asleep the way the San Pachuco up in the by gauche and by gory mists: Speak to me transmit damn me aint a skeert hows put those parts what the women wears sound goners like Italians have but saint of what to send along nothing to hear the hoots they dont tran slate or wont take it though they come from the exact phrase of of fer the bird that is

    12

    Second Chapter The doctrine of reinvocation


    So the words get their berth of me do they name that panoply partial limit or lion half the ground that or the ground that passions lieu did you hear that in the fears memory cannot be apologized for broken resistor whats the trans fer like that or like that when its not a question whens it a real quandory

    13

    Third Chapter Greed


    Maybe if I got me an Optimister who else Id get get for whats a get for for joing fast in the sky slip of the tongue where long is tang a lung of the linjua bit back to where some wear a pause does it mean it is working will it turn real turn the slowing as can regardless there was a frontier way of talking too many of us them

    14

    Fourth Chapter Crowd management


    Ill say this much never my intent when was it was since when yaint got the strength stay outa tharmy courteous as it gets a life unslanged I say to mean folla me it keeps performing the way soaring seems pleasing to the soarer not the way it seems but the way it really is seems to me to be really limping as into a bar folly closer oughta of move along folks thats all

    15

    Fifth Chapter Parroting tips


    Was reading a story of camphor or was it lace destiny and confusion everyone? toot your own horn tutter theres a makeshift backed into a succor sift wasnt even Eyerack a lack of coincidences spells rugged independence doom racket a lotta din gave up refusing all together catch ya on the inseam theres no code chuckling here! the soggy end of any dream

    16

    Sixth Chapter Which rock


    Out there where like two interstates law of gravity meets ledge of averawes quite the hingey pickle they said a person could ahead and try it use their lips average sass against a telos not to rain or rein average tilt not to rest as a bird outsider artisan of the what if it were so and it is or isnt as always and if you do youre nameless the backside of being one of us hello thereby mooting the hell out of the whole thing

    17

    Seventh Chapter Case of emotion


    Election with moist petard if this is my skull you should see his skull, you could hear every installment gins with an epithet it has stopped mattering what you believe jubilant down to the very skivvies he was skint of not the way I heard it not the way unrapt your empty turn its in winter that the owls are flirtinest heard

    18

    Eighth Chapter Sounder soundnest swoon


    Orneriest unrest unblest hornster toadying dawn? oof I thought to make it scend but the toad knows at least hes nonslur just random verbsprung justice means its not the mean the insolute ablution takes place I brought my pardoner with me they grin at the force its free feeble folly just to ride the sore face about its as aloof as a discussion where there isnt a corner theyll pardon the fluviality its the tiara thats amiss

    19

    Ninth Chapter Mixing in


    The more I taliate the less talicize we might vote narrow though I forget the way it went before I got here it could be it couldnt and couldnt could thats why its downy one way up the tenor a tongue if its follied or fellied or cut to chastener and left tall the dangles as ever and in the one version the wife bangs his head with cast iron all to the listeners benefit

    20

    Tenth Chapter Avventures of the front ear


    Auth spattered whats the word for one sure blank that sure guess left auth thole auth quark rode auth on serifless camels how whatuz the auth for that down came its how they cuss did to a boccain brunto left auth to bend iction of this hurt so long why thats pity spat e even the camel was glad for the rain and reupped they whiled doors for what entry a land for sput wheat

    21

    Eleventh Chapter Scholarship


    The story so far a bit of the old modern hitstory on accause of backusations something to launch over wondering if they couldnt sheep did they make some that way shucks shunt shoulnts shooks how do you know which-sound then they ammortized at sate grace a finkll you know the courge of result razor arise alta raise zor helped past the communiqu living tablet its bejeezus propers accounts for by stractors it done it itself they stamp we are the semple trampeltons and wholl go vouchy for ya?

    22

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