In lieu of the reading by Timothy Donnelly that was to be held on Thursday, April 16, please enjoy this overview of Donnelly's work. Here you will find biographical information, links to poems and interviews, and writing prompts for you to explore.
BIO
Timothy Donnelly is the author of three collections of poetry, Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit (2003), The Cloud Corporation (2011), and The Problem of the Many (2019). Born in Providence, RI, Donnelly now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters and teaches creative writing at Columbia university.
POEMS & PROMPTS
Poem Interrupted by Whitesnake
That agreeable feeling we haven’t yet been able
to convert into words to our satisfaction
despite several conscious attempts to do so
might prove in the end to be nothing
more than satisfaction itself, an advanced
new formula just sitting there waiting to be
marketed as such: Let my logo be the couch
I can feel it pulse as the inconstant moon
Prompt: Write a poem that encapsulates a feeling for which there is no word.
The Driver of the Car is Unconscious
Driver, please. Let’s slow things down. I can’t endure
the speed you favor, here where the air’s electric
hands keep charging everything, a blur of matter
fogs the window
and my mind to rub it. Don’t look now, but the vast
majority of chimpanzees on the road’s soft shoulder
can’t
determine: Which fascinates more, the thing per se
or the decoration on its leaking package? How like
us, they--
Prompt: Write a poem from the perspective of someone at the mercy of another person/force/entity. What kinds of thoughts are going through your mind? What kinds of promises and pleas might you make?
As meteors pierce the sky’s tin vault,
so molecules sail through the many
pores of my own enclosure, what trash what
treasure, piss and brilliance, a fleet of
snippets shed from the vast exterior’s
chaos haystack, flop and fodder, there
is no NO, not here, not yet. I have been
forever, I am not yet born. Into the one
tremendous whistling laze of this, my
pulsed amalgam, I admit the all, a just lie
Prompt: Sit down for five minutes and write out your stream of consciousness. Take what you’ve
written and turn it into a poem with a strict form such as couplets or a sonnet.
My citizenship is most acutely
felt at night when I entrust myself
into the dark and sulfury confusion
of the belly of it, having already
submitted to a long lick of the just
barely visible mucus of its laws,
whose warm coat protects me from
the perilous storm, the numerous
nocturnal forms, and much anxiety
regarding same, which would otherwise
Prompt: Examine your social privilege. What happens if you anthropomorphize this privilege
What is its personality like? What are its successes and failures? How does this privilege inhabit
your modern life?
INTERVIEWS