POET TIM GREENUP By Karen Mobley
“ What I love about Tim ’ s work is that you never know what he ’ s going to say next . That is also what I love about Tim in person ,” said Laura Read , Spokane Poet Laureate
Tim said , “ Whenever I ’ m asked about favorite poets , the first name that comes to mind is James Tate . But while writing Without Warning I was also inspired by Russel Edson ’ s The Tunnel , Frank Stanford ’ s The Singing Knives , Melissa Kwasny ’ s Thistle , and Robert Bly ’ s book Leaping Poetry , which argues that poems should ‘ leap ’ between the conscious and unconscious minds . That ’ s something I strived to do in the poems that became Without Warning . Of late , I ’ ve been taken by Mary Ruefle and Tracy K . Smith and Charles Simic .
I teach English at SFCC , and sometimes I ’ m fortunate enough to teach poetry , be it in literature or creative writing classes . I see that a lot of poetry just rolls off my students , and so sometimes I envision them as my audience when I ’ m writing . I ’ ll think ‘ how can I turn this poem into something Stanley could respond to ?’ That poses challenges and forces me to make decisions I probably wouldn ’ t come to if I were only thinking about the poem from my perspective . I ’ m fortunate to work with some great writers — Laura Read , Ben Cartwright , and Leyna Krow to name a few — whose work is different from mine , but who help me keep my head in the game , so to speak . Just being around them reminds me that ‘ yes , yes , I may be a teacher now , but I am also a poet . That ’ s something I do too .’”
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