In 2017 I embarked upon a fresh adventure in poetry. This publication marks the first conclusive results of that adventure. The Altar-Gray Gaze of a Showman on the Brink collects work from 2017-2019 into three books. I’ve described it thus:

Soul-searing quest and daring poetic experiment mix fearlessly in the first full-length published work by American poet Timothy Lavenz.

Tracking through aftershocks of grief, epiphanies of freedom, excoriations of world and faith-filled vows to future beauty, and all the inner tangles and glimmers of masterpiece in between, this book takes nothing for granted. Not meaning, life, universe or God-nothing is known until the poem invents the sonic landscape where its discoveries will be revealed in a surprise dawn. Authorial voice ceaselessly morphs its engagement, style digs deeper into the unspeakable nerve, tone intensifies its passion and gives way to exultation as it molts-here is a mesmerizing necklace of intimate ciphers, an ever-fresh “ritual of amazements unborn.“

This poetry calls out from the shell of assumed position into an encounter of gazes colliding in the tumble of truth. It catches its bearings only to tumble further, as the author and showman, that “joyous pawn,” lists heavenward with his magic-calm giggle, porting over a healing signal with a whole host of human hopes.

Here the Mystery is not solved or reasoned out: it is unfolded in its vividness so that another heart can sing along. Here is a soul’s progress through the gauntlet of pain and love, conducted by an audacious investigation of the limits of language, which stretch here to mirror that soul’s vision, so it may share it with a fellow pained pilgrim who loves.

I would be honored if you would purchase my book and, if you deem it worth your time,  write a review on the Amazon page or elsewhere so that more people will find my work.

Readers of this blog will know that my work in the area of poetry extends back a very long time. While I often use the medium of philosophical essay to express my thoughts, my poetry is the most novel contribution I feel I have to make to this world. I view poetry as a form of psychic alchemy. The poems in The Altar-Gray Gaze… are the most potent potions for the alchemy from that time-period. My hope is for it to draw others to think outside the normal categories, especially as regards God, freedom, self, and expressivity. As filtered through the medium of metaphor and sound, I believe the product of such questioning can do more to the reader than the mere abstraction of philosophy can accomplish, even if this result is more ambiguous.

I will collect on this page a few pieces of mine which have to do with the theory of poetry:

Adventure of Poetry (podcast with Daniel Tutt)
The Swerve of Poetry Matures
With Them Without Words: A Non-Dual Heritage of Future Language (on Epoche Mag)
More than Words: On Poetry w/ Tim Lavenz (podcast with Owls at Dawn)
Silent Consonants of the Named: on Paul Celan (conference paper at Tulsa University)
Utopic Expressivity: Laruelle and Paul Celan (paper published at Oraxiom Journal)
Sparing Language
Joy and Justice (on the relation of poetry and philosophy)
Nontology (same)
The Grill of Language
On Poetry by Rene Char (translation)
Poetry as a Spiritual Exercise by Jean Wahl (translation)
Hindu Bhakti tradition and its sant-poets
Poem as Place / Pictures of a Face (on poetry and Wittgenstein)
“Medicine” (2008 non-fiction account of how I first started writing poetry)

I thank you very much for reading my blog and engaging with my work.