Sharing a Poem for Father’s Day: “My Father’s Tools”

Our father repaired typewriters, a lost art. Here is a poem recalling his shop in the basement where he let me help him when I was young.

My Father’s Tools

Leaning over typewriter frame, hands
ink dark with calluses, my father reaches
around type bars and brackets, levers
of tempered steel, hooking a spring,
placing the smallest screw
with magnetized driver. He adjusts
to touch, aligning letters
until they flow in perfect lines,
finger strike to paper.

Broken machines wait on bench
with glass jars of spare parts,
needle-nosed pliers worn smooth,
small torch for soldering type,
hooks, benders, crimpers,
oil can with long nozzle,
cleaning tub with black solvent.

He lets me scrub the type
and pivots, bathe them in oil,
wipe them dry until they shine
like reborn souls. Now the typewriters
are gone but I keep his tools,
fixing any problem. I show my son
how to grasp each one, correct angle,
knowing the tool by its function.
He adds his layer of fingerprints,
imagining machines he will build.


This poem is included in my collection, The Poet’s Garage.

Award Opportunities for Published Books

Sharing some recent research on award opportunities for published books. If you published a book in the past year, this might be helpful. Most do not allow self-published books, and some require your publisher to nominate. In any case, be sure to check the eligibility requirements because they vary according to location, publication dates, and submission details.

When I started my search, I found most awards request manuscripts, and the award is publication, which is wonderful. But what if your book is already published? My list is not exhaustive, of course, and I tended to focus on awards that consider books from small presses.  

The Poet’s Garage Pod

Just for fun and to celebrate the launch of my poetry collection, The Poet’s Garage, from Unsolicited Press, here’s a brief podcast of the title poem.

Based on a true story, the poem tells how we learned there was another Terry Tierney, a suspected felon, living in Lincoln, Nebraska when we moved there. My arrival aroused several official computers. The police and the social services department thought I lied about my quiet life as a graduate student supported by my tolerant, librarian wife.

Ironically, when I wasn’t distracted by writing poetry in Lincoln, I was working on my dissertation about William Makepeace Thackeray and his various protagonists as doubles of himself. Those doubles have much less contrast with one another than me and my apparent double.

The cover of The Poet’s Garage depicts the poem, complete with pools of grease where lines have spilled, the cardboard box of active verbs, and the files of proper nouns. As in the poem, the poet has eluded arrest, so far.

Reading the Poet’s Garage

The Poet’s Garage is available from Unsolicited Press, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, Amazon and other retailers. You can also support your local bookstore by searching for them on Indiebound.

The Poet’s Garage is Alive!

My poetry collection, The Poet’s Garage, was published today by Unsolicited Press! My thanks to the editors, friends, and fellow writers who helped make it happen. Here’s a link to the press release: http://www.unsolicitedpress.com/blog/announcing-the-release-of-terry-tierneys-the-poets-garage

The Poet’s Garage is available from Unsolicited Press, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, Amazon and other retailers. You can also support your local bookstore by searching for them on Indiebound.

My Reading for the California Writer’s Club Reposted by Unsolicited Press

Thanks to Kristen Caven and Karma Bennett for giving me a chance to read for the CWC Berkeley branch on Zoom, and thanks to my publisher Unsolicited Press for reposting. I read five poems from my upcoming collection, The Poet’s Garage.

http://www.unsolicitedpress.com/blog/terry-tierney-author-of-the-poets-garage-reads