Description: In the first of Muddy Ford Press's Laureate Series, edited by Columbia, SC poet laureate Ed Madden, Tim Conroy writes of pain, loss, and going forward in beauty, and love. Conroy is a founding board member of the Pat Conroy Literary Center established in his brother's honor.
Brief description: Tim Conroy is a former special education teacher, school administrator, and vice president of the South Carolina Autism Society. His poetry and short fiction have been published in literary journals, magazines, and compilations, including Fall Lines, Auntie Bellum, and Marked by the Water. A founding board member of the Pat Conroy Literary Center, established in his brother's honor, Conroy lives and writes in Columbia, South Carolina.
Review Quotes:
"In this dwelling of scars/the history of dirt is blood," Tim Conroy tells us in this excellent debut. There is sadness in these poems, vivid renderings of childhood abuse and of lives that ended too soon, but the beauty of the natural world is also acknowledged, as is the realization that memory offers consolation as well as sorrow, all of which leads to the poet's hard-earned affirmation that "love has saved me." Bravo! - Ron Rash
"In the journey you inventory/all it is you carry," writes Tim Conroy early on in Theologies of Terrain. These fine poems map a complex and beautiful journey through loss, love, and, finally, revelation. They chart masterfully the complex hills and valleys of grief and memory. They probe at the edges of the mystery of family, maybe the landscape most full of hard, sometimes impassible terrain. There are many beautiful poems here, and we are lucky to have such a collection to map our own journeys. - John Lane