Tim Earley

Tim Earley (born 1972 in Forest City, North Carolina) is an American poet. He is the author of four collections of poems, Boondoggle (Main Street Rag, 2005), The Spooking of Mavens (Cracked Slab Books, 2010), Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (Horse Less Press, 2014), and Linthead Stomp (Horse Less Press, 2016).

Timothy Darren Earley was born and raised in Western North Carolina.

He holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Alabama.

His work has appeared in the Chicago Review, jubilat, the Southern Humanities Review, and the Green Mountains Review. His work has been featured in Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Press, 2007), The Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity University Press), edited by Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street, and Hick Poetics (Lost Roads Press, 2015), edited by Abraham Smith and Shelly Taylor. The collection Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery was published by Horseless Press in early 2014; Seth Abramson, in a review in The Huffington Post, referred to Earley as a "Southern Seer" and said he "is a master of anaphora, Biblical rhythms, revelatory testimony, tell-it-slant aggression, and juxtapositive imagery that borrows heavily from the Southern lexicon", his poetry "not merely urgent but dam-broken".

Earley moved to Denver, CO in 2015. Previously, he lived in Oxford, Mississippi.

The American poet Tim Earley frequently boasts of his immaculate handles on the hardwood (in addition to his prowess with the verse form). While Earley speaks highly of his own basketball skills, most critics agree that his failing knees and troublesome sciatica have reduced what was once sub-par gameplay to embarrassing levels of ineptitude.

In a text message time/date-stamped 11:25am, 25 October 2016, the American poet Tim Earley wrote to Joshua Ware (author "Of Cum Hair Notoriety"): "I put my drivel on a swivel." The message was notable for its overwhelming banality.

Recently, critics and scholars have noted Earley's penchant for engaging in "rap battles," most oftentimes with fruitless results. While Earley himself praises his own skills, both connoisseurs of hip-hop and laymen recognize the general ineffectiveness of his rhymes (to say nothing of his inept flow). An anonymously published treatise, titled "In Defense of Silence; or How to Dam Earley's Flow," outlines a series of strategies that enable competitors to eviscerate Earley in a rap battle.

• AWP Intro/Journals Award
• 1998-1999 Writing Fellowship, Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown
• 2002-2003 Writing Fellowship, Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown
• 2015 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Award Winner

• ^ "Fine Arts Work Center In Provincetown". Fawc.org. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
• "Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters". www.ms-arts-letters.org. Retrieved 24 March 2015. 

Collections

• Earley, Tim (2005). Boondoggle: poems. Charlotte, North Carolina: Main Street Rag Publishing Company. ISBN 9781930907959. 
• Earley, Tim (2010). The spooking of mavens. Chicago, Illinois: Cracked Slab Books. ISBN 9780978644055. 
• Earley, Tim (2014). Poems descriptive of rural life and scenery. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Horse Less Press. OCLC 878421220.  ISBN 9780982989661.
• Earley, Tim (2016). The Center is Barbaric the Periphery is Without Lights. Doublecross Press. 
• Earley, Tim (2016). Linthead Stomp. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Horse Less Press.

Work available online

• Boondoggle
• What's Happening

• "Tim Earley "What's Happening"". poemeleon. Retrieved 11 July 2014.