Praise for WHY THE TREES STAY OUTSIDE
With a fine ear and a sharp eye, Terry Tierney soars and dives into the conundrums of living we didn’t realize but need to know. In Why Trees Stay Outside, the final waiting room, affection turned inside-out, raw wind, man disassembled, aliened, then put back together again with heart. His turns of phrase will stay with you—a masterful book of poems--Bravo Terry!
Bruce Isaacson, Emeritus Poet Laureate, Clark County, Nevada
Terry Tierney’s Why Trees Stay Outside beats an enduring pulse of loss and love, pain and wonder in counterpoint with the ecological and political chaos of this time. Delicate recollections that span across generations of experience merge with tender acceptance of what is to form a reverence as complexly layered and awakeningly clear as the oscillations of a struck bell. Tierney shows us how photographs are ghosts, how “a gopher chants recipes / from her pulpit of sifted loam”, how “islands / punch through the fog like knuckles”, how the “sappy redwood drools / pooling in ice between roots”, and how life gushes on in prismatic filagree no matter how much we might lose in the process. Like a jewel in an echo chamber, this collection of skillfully crafted poems, rich with arresting imagery and lyrical language, leaves a lingering sparkle in the mind.
Maw Shein Win, author of Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn)
Why Trees Stay Outside is a delightful exploration of innocent questions, earned curiosities, and fugitive answers. Terry Tierney plays expert words into poems.
Kim Shuck, 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco Emerita
About the Book
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.
About the Author
Terry Tierney is the author of a poetry collection, The Poet’s Garage, and the novels Lucky Ride and The Bridge on Beer River, all published by Unsolicited Press. His poems, short stories, and reviews have appeared in numerous literary magazines. After serving in the Seabees, he completed his BA and MA at Binghamton University and a PhD in Victorian Literature at Emory University. He taught college composition and creative writing courses, and survived several Silicon Valley startups as a software engineering manager. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and literary mentor, Michaelyn Burnette, their enthusiastic Golden Retriever, and two fluffy cats. More can be learned at http://terrytierney.com