ere are mystery and mastery in Tim Earley’s poems. He is able to give into the unfathomable forces that swirl around the geology and genealogy, the museum and mystery of the South among them. His poems speak to an immersion in the manifold, a look at the eccentric and odd; their idiosyncratic music envelops us in time, makes a new time. . . in this way he’s able to open up the perplexed interior for us to see. The sight can be unnerving or sad. Or it can be astonishing and gorgeous. His work is exuberant and restless and always wanting to “further.” Bruce Smith