“Perhaps it takes a mind in equal measure that of a mathematician and an artist to produce a work with such perceptual and emotional bandwidth."
Scott Mason, author of The Wonder Code: Discover the Way of Haiku and See the World with New Eyes
When Godot Arrived Red Hen Press, August 2026 Don't miss Jim's latest collection of new poems! To learn more about the book, click here. Praise for When Godot Arrived Jim Tilley’s poems in When Godot Arrived present a carefully observed natural world engaged to convey a variety of felt experiences. Canadian geese, whimbrels, Galloway cows, mallards, alpaca, caterpillars, pine trees, Japanese maple, bodies of water and more all set a stage for reflections on life in a laid back, often ironic key. Unrhymed, free verse poems reveal a questioning self, caught sometimes, “between too many and / too few, when I sense I can see, but actually can’t.” There is magic in Tilley’s world; at one point the speaker is drawn to worship towering power lines. A polluted lake has colors that become lyrical under lights, a battered jeep is a haven for an elderly couple, an aging maple has “limbs spiraling upwards like / a figure skater’s arms.” The book ends on an elegiac note, softened by the knowledge of “what it truly / means to be alive, more than just breathing.” Jo Sarzotti, retired, former chair of the Liberal Arts Department at The Juilliard School Like Didi and Gogo in Beckett's play, the speakers in Jim Tilley's new collection wonder what to make of our common time here, our wait for the temporarily postponed but seemingly inevitable. These poems confront personal losses as well as the numerous harbingers of environmental collapse, from birds to beavers to beetles along Red River or beside Lake Marie, eddies and currents evoking social, economic, and political conflicts beyond the trails hiked in many of these poems. The figure in "I Feel Sorry for Your Shoes" echoes not only Gogo's serio-comic obsession with his boots but also his resolve "to plod onward" through the seeming futility of the present. Indeed, Tilley's free-verse sonnet form throughout When Godot Arrived is itself a gesture of commitment, an affirmation of form in the face of chaos. Gogo, who somewhat wincingly identifies as a poet himself, would understand. James Scruton, retired, former Mary B. Holmes Professor of Literature at Bethel University |
Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe Red Hen Press, June 2024 To learn more about the book, click here. |
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Praise for Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe Perhaps it takes a mind in equal measure that of a mathematician and an artist to produce a work with such perceptual and emotional bandwidth. Here we find poems of pure observation and distilled reminiscence; of rapt attention and a capacious imagination; of sheer whimsy and thinly disguised indignation. Tilley may despair at our pervasive human folly but ultimately finds solace, if not faith, in our natural abode. A most expansive read. Scott Mason, author of The Wonder Code: Discover the Way of Haiku and See the World with New Eyes |