The Extremities: Volume 22

Amazing and interesting, gives a new take on our bodies and their issues. As someone with chronic and disabling extremity issues, I could relate. Gives you things to ponder upon, laugh about and cry over....excellent talent!

Author of two previous collections of poetry and award winning poet Timothy Kelly returns with his third anthology of verse in "The Extremities". Contemplating the unique subject of the human body and turning the science behind it into enlightening, educational, and entertaining lyrical poetry, "The Extremities" is a read poetry lovers are sure to enjoy. Highly recommended for community library poetry collections. "Taking It In to Have it Looked At": In her voice there's Irish tracings,/ in her ear a bridgework of bones. In the bones/ small sets of shivers upon which/ everything you think you hear turns.// In the eye there's carpet receptive/ to light waved in from the star; and the tamped/ seeds, signaled, splay triggered,/ the seeds where the libraries are.// In sleep dart severs the senses,/ then incommunicado we drift our beds; and are/ mapped by lovers we never knew/ were stowed away strange in our heads.

Tim Kelly's new collection of poems once again challenges the reader to not only appreciate the incredible machinery of the body, which we generally take for granted until some injury or getting older forces us to become more aware and respectful of how simple movements are so complex, but, even more, to make connections between our bodies and other experiences in our lives - memories from childhood, the subtle and sensual moments in our relationships, images of nature, and small everyday details that acquire poignant and evocative meaning. Beyond the intricate descriptions of how our bodies move and function, which he understands so precisely through his work as a physical therapist, his poems encourage us to pause and reflect with similar reverence and fascination how we are inextricably connected to our personal histories as well as our physical and social environments. These are poems that become richer and more enchanting with each reading.

In this new collection by Tim Kelly, the imagery of physical therapy and the body share center stage with the sensual exploration of touch. In these evocative poems, Kelly talks of the touch of the woman he loves, and of the patient he is helping back to health and well-being. With a poet's deft hand, he interweaves the personal, the clinical, and the sensual, and in the process, gave me a new appreciation for the living, breathing body I inhabit. I heard a segment on the local NPR station of Kelly reading these poems, and listened as the interviewer praised the composition and imagery. I went out and bought the book, and have not been disappointed. [...] If you like poetry even a little, and are interested in the 'science' of the human body, you will like these poems. I am going to explore some of his other work as well, now that I've discovered this volume.