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Vanishing Point
The poems in this remarkable collection, like the miscellaneous objects in the museum that inspired the book’s arrangement, are as random--and as revealing--as life itself. As we turn the pages, we have a growing sense that every encounter with people, creatures, objects or events--whether personal or public, welcome or apprehensive, playful or serious--reveals more than A voice keeps asking, Where am I in all this? That question soon becomes ours, as does the answer, though it remains unspoken until the book’s final poem asks the question again and, in a voice expanding to include the whole earth and its inhabitants, even the angels, proclaims the answer in the soaring last lines of a communal hymn. —Bob Longoni served as Director of the University of Arizona Poetry Center, and is the author of Woodpiles Tim Amsden’s Vanishing Point has wit and pathos, wisdom and delight. These poems show the heart of a man who cherishes life and is not afraid to open himself to the larger questions of who and why we are in this complicated world. He moves seamlessly from intimate memory to the tenderness of loving his wife, to sharing life’s simple moments, the ones that sustain us. With humor and honesty, Amsden takes us on a journey through the rooms of his life, where “…in my center nests a sliver of grace.” —Paula Sayword is the author of What Sleeps Inside and Canticle of Light and Dark
110 pages, Paperback
Published June 22, 2015
About the author
Tim Amsden
4 booksTim Amsden was born in Wichita, Kansas, earned a law degree from the University of Iowa, and worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Kansas City for 25 years. He now lives with his wife, Lucia, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
His writings have appeared in journals and anthologies throughout the US, as well as in Canada, Algeria, Ireland, and Turkey. Amsden’s full-length book of poetry, Vanishing Point, was published in 2015. He edited and contributed to a book titled The Bear is My Father: Indigenous Wisdom of a Muskogee Creek Medicine Man, which was published in 2021 by Synergetic Press.
Love Letter to Ramah: Living beside New Mexico's Trail of the Ancients, was published by the University of New Mexico Press on September 1, 2024. The book is a portrait of Tim and Lucia’s life within an eclectic and diverse earth-rooted community. There they acquired a visceral certainty, central to the beliefs of most traditional people, that to survive and prosper, we must live in concert with the needs of the living earth, and with each other.
His writings have appeared in journals and anthologies throughout the US, as well as in Canada, Algeria, Ireland, and Turkey. Amsden’s full-length book of poetry, Vanishing Point, was published in 2015. He edited and contributed to a book titled The Bear is My Father: Indigenous Wisdom of a Muskogee Creek Medicine Man, which was published in 2021 by Synergetic Press.
Love Letter to Ramah: Living beside New Mexico's Trail of the Ancients, was published by the University of New Mexico Press on September 1, 2024. The book is a portrait of Tim and Lucia’s life within an eclectic and diverse earth-rooted community. There they acquired a visceral certainty, central to the beliefs of most traditional people, that to survive and prosper, we must live in concert with the needs of the living earth, and with each other.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 16, 2016
VANISHING POINT
Tim Amsden
Tim Amsden (2015)
ISBN 9780692435526
Reviewed by Juliana Leal for Reader Views (02/16)
“Vanishing Point” by Tim Amsden, is a compendium of experiences in his life that he exposes through his poems. He takes from every meaningful memory or any situation in his life and gives a deeper sense of the moment. His poetry is like a collection of objects that you keep, so when you happen to glance upon that collection, you know that behind it are so many memories, so many others that were part of it before. You keep it because is an antique, and it treasures not only your memories, but also the history behind it.
Like in “The Old Oriental Rug”
Our old Oriental rug
goes back to my wife’s parents
and grandparents and great-grandparents,
and before that merchant and traders
and on back to some Persian whose
samovar gurgled dark coffee
upon its swirling sea
of blue and red geometry.
It is clear the poems in “Vanishing Point” are written by a very sensitive person, who loves his wife and appreciates life in all the senses of the word, but also by someone who is looking for answers and the truth about why we are here and what our place is in the world.
As depicted in “If Truth Were a Fish and I Were a Cormorant”
How do we know, caught in our bodies like ants in syrup?
The trees won’t tell.
The rocks won’t tell.
Some men fiddle with their ties
and lay out truths like slabs of concrete,
but they don’t know.
My mother didn’t know.
What the author presents in his poems is a journey of life experiences and I highly recommend “Vanishing Point” by Tim Amsden. My favorite poem is “When I am Old.” I felt I entered his world and enjoyed word by word, the meaning of his journey in life when he said, “I will bring out my bag of bright moments.”
Tim Amsden
Tim Amsden (2015)
ISBN 9780692435526
Reviewed by Juliana Leal for Reader Views (02/16)
“Vanishing Point” by Tim Amsden, is a compendium of experiences in his life that he exposes through his poems. He takes from every meaningful memory or any situation in his life and gives a deeper sense of the moment. His poetry is like a collection of objects that you keep, so when you happen to glance upon that collection, you know that behind it are so many memories, so many others that were part of it before. You keep it because is an antique, and it treasures not only your memories, but also the history behind it.
Like in “The Old Oriental Rug”
Our old Oriental rug
goes back to my wife’s parents
and grandparents and great-grandparents,
and before that merchant and traders
and on back to some Persian whose
samovar gurgled dark coffee
upon its swirling sea
of blue and red geometry.
It is clear the poems in “Vanishing Point” are written by a very sensitive person, who loves his wife and appreciates life in all the senses of the word, but also by someone who is looking for answers and the truth about why we are here and what our place is in the world.
As depicted in “If Truth Were a Fish and I Were a Cormorant”
How do we know, caught in our bodies like ants in syrup?
The trees won’t tell.
The rocks won’t tell.
Some men fiddle with their ties
and lay out truths like slabs of concrete,
but they don’t know.
My mother didn’t know.
What the author presents in his poems is a journey of life experiences and I highly recommend “Vanishing Point” by Tim Amsden. My favorite poem is “When I am Old.” I felt I entered his world and enjoyed word by word, the meaning of his journey in life when he said, “I will bring out my bag of bright moments.”
Displaying 1 of 1 review