A Way With Words

Tim Cullen's poems arrive like overheard thoughts-sharp, unsettled, alive to the fragility underneath things. A philosopher grappling with Lucifer's problem. A green Buick suddenly precarious as a glass egg on ice. Lucky children learning grace isn't "granted only them."

These are poems written in the margins of a busy life-composed between trials and travels, rewritten across years. The five-line form (when he keeps to it) gives each piece just enough room to pivot, to land a thought before...