Timothy Liu

Timothy Liu Poems

Timothy Liu Biography

Timothy Liu (Liu Ti Mo) was born in 1965 in San Jose, California, to parents from the Chinese mainland. He studied at Brigham Young University, the University of Houston, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is the author of Polytheogamy (Saturnalia, 2009); Bending the Mind Around the Dream’s Blown Fuse (Talisman House, 2009); For Dust Thou Art (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005); Of Thee I Sing (University of Georgia Press, 2004), selected by Publishers Weekly as a 2004 Book-of-the-Year; Hard Evidence (Talisman House, 2001); Say Goodnight (Copper Canyon Press, 1998); Burnt Offerings (Copper Canyon Press, 1995); and Vox Angelica (Alice James Books, 1992), which won the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award. About Liu's work, the poet Fanny Howe has said, "Timothy Liu writes out of an angry materialism, ill-fitting body, disappointment at every turn. He takes on his point of view wholeheartedly and compresses the consequences into phrases that echo and mimic each other, thereby increasing the sensation of claustrophobia and fever." Liu’s honors and awards include a Pushcart Prize, Best American Poetry in 2002, and the Open Book Beyond Margins Award. He also edited Word of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American Poetry, (Talisman House, 2000). He has served as a core faculty member at Bennington College’s Writing Seminars, and is currently an associate professor at William Paterson University. He lives in Manhattan.)

The Best Poem Of Timothy Liu

Blind Date

Blind Date
Scrabble tiles spilled
across the bedroom floor—
no one keeping score.

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