Fault Lines [Paperback]

Tim Hunt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2009

Poetry. "The strength of Tim Hunt's nature poems drew me into this book. His observation of light, rocks, a hawk and a field mouse in 'High Desert Summer,' a California landscape, is so intense that he seems to long to become part of it. Then come the poems honoring and loving his family, whose history is made up of men and women 'getting by,' 'learning to make do,' acquiring 'that tricky pride of the poor--the failing that is success.' Here is a poet standing on the threshold of existence, acutely aware of the humans, both living and dead, existing in the rooms behind him, but wanting, 'other times,' the consolation of nature. His ambivalence is a strength and enrichment, not only for him, but for his fortunate readers"--Judith Hemschemeyer.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

A fourth-generation native of Northern California, Tim Hunt was born in Calistoga and raised primarily in Sebastopol, two small towns north of San Francisco. Educated at Cornell University, he has taught American literature at several schools, including Washington State University and Deep Springs College. He is currently Professor of English at Illinois State University, in Normal, Illinois. Hunt's poetry has been widely published in magazines, and he has published the chapbook Lake County Diamond. He has also been awarded the Chester H. Jones Prize for the poem "Lake County Elegy." FAULT LINES is his first full-length collection. His scholarly publications include Kerouac's Crooked Road: Development of a Fiction and the five-volume edition The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. Tim Hunt's website is located at www.tahunt.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 100 pages
• Publisher: The Backwaters Press (December 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1935218166
• ISBN-13: 978-1935218166
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,011,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A collection of poetry that shouldn't be missed, October 11, 2010

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fault Lines (Paperback)

Expecting perfection out of something built on fault lines is just naive. "Fault Lines" is a collection of poetry from Tim Hunt as he provides his own view of the legend and mythos of the California lifestyle, reflecting on desert life and how it's lived. Charming, humorous, and poignant, "Fault Lines" is a collection of poetry that shouldn't be missed. "Listening": There is a silence beneath the stories/where we learn the things that matter most./It is like walking in a garden./There are sculptures.//At first we see the objects, each/beautiful in turn -- gray//curves of rock, the planes/of welded steel. Only later/do we begin to hear/the passing clouds.

5.0 out of 5 stars Wisdom Awareness in Poetry, September 23, 2010

By 

Robert McDowell (Ashland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fault Lines (Paperback)

Tim Hunt's Fault Lines is a book I wanted to publish the last few years I worked at Story Line Press, but I was never able to do so. That's why it's such a thrill to hold a copy from The Backwaters Press.

Hunt is a poet who truly knows the "silence beneath the stories/where we learn the things that matter most." This is knowledge that is deeper than book learning. It's akin to the ritual and spells passed on from generation to generation among the Celts. It's a wisdom awareness that comes of living life close to the seasons and the earth. It's a humbling awareness of the heavens above and the deep chasms, recesses, and memories below our feet.

A great scholar and student of Robinson Jeffers, Hunt in these poems joins his mentor as a guardian and oracle of our deepest memories. Whether his ostensible subject is fifties television, peace marches, fishing, language, or jeans, Hunt gracefully guides us from the topical to timeless reconnections with lives past, lives only partially understood, and landscapes we've forgotten but need back if we're ever to evolve into the shining people we're meant to be.

Hunt's is a chronicling, questing poetry. It's quiet strength and maturity hold a cultural and historical space for us that a lot of the chattering, flippant writing all around us simply cannot do. The poems in Fault Lines arrest us. They say, Slow down. Remember what it felt like to breathe deeply, consider quietly, and reflect?

What a pleasure to meet that here, now.


--Robert McDowell, [...] and [...] is the author of the bestselling Poetry As Spiritual Practice: Reading, Writing, and Using Poetry in Your Daily Rituals, Aspirations, and Intentions (Free Press/Simon & Schuster), and the forthcoming The More We Get Together: The Sexual and Spiritual Language of Love (Feb. 2011).