Nectar of Story by Tim J. Myers

"Tim J. Myers connects story to poem, creating two experiences from one source, with an ingenious way to approach poetry. Legends, biblical stories, newspaper reportage, myth, and lore, are interpreted into present-day poetry, themes centralized, then kept in motion by prosody—passion, eros, despair, and triumph, each with its own identity. Myers displays an important craft in Nectar of Story where humankind’s first dreams are told and transformed, so that the page has two hearts— narrative and verse, infinite with possibilities. I’m genuinely moved by the way Myers delves into ancient channels of communication— moving past memory— to ignite the imagination. Tim J. Myers is indeed Our Patron Saint of Story."

—Grace Cavalieri, poet, dramatist, and director of “The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress”

"Nectar of Story considers wildly various, ever intriguing subjects with sympathy, passion, and self-effacing wisdom. And his prose introductions to the poems are often as fine as the vignettes in Hemingway's In Our Time. A rich and wonderful collection."

—Ron Hansen, National Book Award finalist and author of Mariette in Ecstasy

"At first glance, Tim J. Myers’ Nectar of Story appears to be a kind of call-and-response between stories and poems, but the book’s structure is far more complex than that. One might also assume that the stories function as epigraphs, or explanatory footnotes to the poems, but they are neither. Nor are the poems ekphrastic, created as formal responses to other works of art. Instead, Tim Myers has created an entire constellation of connections between stories—timeless embodiments of how we as a species take the world into ourselves—and poems, one mind’s unique assimilation and purified expression of that common human territory. What’s perhaps most remarkable about the poems is that although their umbilicals to the stories are often evident in the form of segues, spin-offs, answers-back, even subtle rebuttals, they are at the same time wholly independent of their origins. They are as unpredictable and thrilling as poems that seem to come from nowhere, as all genuine works of imagination do."

—Chase Twichell, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award

"There's a storytelling voice that informs and deepens all of Tim J. Myers' poetry. It seems as if each of his poems leads to a journey worth taking. His language, like that of the classic poets of the T'ang dynasty is as clear as fresh water— a clarity that may hide at first the depth of thought behind each poem. There's also a deep humanity in his work, as well as a sincere awareness of and respect for the circle of being that surrounds us."

—Joseph Bruchac, Abenaki writer and storyteller

Tim J. Myers is a writer, songwriter, storyteller, and senior lecturer at Santa Clara University. His children’s books (13 published and two in press) have won recognition from the New York Times, NPR, and the Smithsonian. He’s published over 130 poems, won a first prize in a poetry contest judged by John Updike, has two books of adult poetry out and a nonfiction book on fatherhood, and won a major prize in science fiction. He won the West Coast Songwriters Saratoga Chapter Song of the Year and the 2012 SCBWI Magazine Merit Award for Fiction. Find him at www.TimMyersStorySong.com or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TimJMyers1.

Book Information:

· Paperback: 142 pages
· Binding: Perfect-Bound
· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books]
· ISBN: 978-1-60964-202-0