For this installment of We Call Upon the Author to Explain, we had the great honor of talking to Timothy Geiger about his collection In a Field of Hallowed Be. The book deals with growing up, family, love, and memory, and handles these weighty subjects with a lightness of touch that’s quite extraordinary to experience. It’s an incredibly thoughtful collection that led our conversation to some heady places. We hope you enjoy reading.

Ada Wofford: In the opening poem, the narrator, while high, is asked by a cop why his eyes “look like that.” The narrator replies, “I was born this way.” This line felt very poignant to the struggle the narrator was going through. All the narrator’s problems, the life that brought him to that moment, could be explained as a form of fate. Is that what you meant to express with that line? And how does the concept of fate speak to the collection as a whole?

Timothy Geiger: I do think that the prefatory poem tries to establish the concept of fate as a recurring theme throughout the whole book, though not necessarily fate as predestination so much as fate as the signs and portents we follow to somehow arrive at where we are in this world. The speaker, at that moment in the poem, is lost, or by your astute reading, was born lost, not knowing the way, and has to make a choice to find his way to the field where he belongs. To me, the idea of belonging is inextricably linked to the idea of fate, in that fate gives us the opportunities to lead us to where we belong. The phrase “meant to be,” which shows up later in the poem, again expresses the idea of fate guiding the speaker to the right path—to that one place which can show him how to live. Consequently, this notion of fate leads the speaker through the book all the way to the final poem, “The Center,” which is meant as both an interpersonal and a contextual symbol of finally belonging.

AW: The poem “Weather Report” contains the line, “Tracy blames the moon,” which has its own context within the poem, but in the following poem, “Animals in the Dark,” the opening two lines read, “There is no solace in what I want/anymore. I conjure the moonless field.” Are these meant to be read as being connected, as the moon being to blame for the narrator’s melancholy? To build on that, what is the importance of nature in this collection?

TG: Sigh… the moon is such a lonely rock, but the light it offers makes even the darkest night effervescent… But I think what connects those two poems even more than the moon is the sense of duty the speaker feels in the face of nature. There’s this saying, “That’s just life on the farm,” which my wife and I tell each other whenever we experience some hardship with our livestock, or the weather, or the land. It speaks to the indifferent aspect of nature, how you can do everything right, and things still go wrong. I think that’s the role of nature in this book, that despite the tribulations it throws at the speaker, the melancholies and the tragedies, it never dampens the speaker’s desire to be a good steward of it, because when it goes right, which is often, nature is such an overwhelming source of joy and celebration.

AW: The title of this collection is beautiful, but of course, one cannot help but think of the Lord’s Prayer when they read it. I took it to mean that the “field” meaning earth (both the earth of the ground and planet Earth) is God, something worthy of worship and love. Is this what you intended? If not, what inspired the title?

TG: Matters of faith and spirituality have always played a large role in my poetry. My first book Blue Light Factory, was primarily about growing up in a large Catholic family. Over time with maturity, I’ve adopted a more pantheistic view, particularly with my last book, Weatherbox. Your reading of the title is spot on, as is your reading of “the field.” My intention was to harken back to the terminology and language of my past life in Catholicism to express my current transcendent beliefs regarding the magnanimity of the field—a place which to me exemplifies true holiness and grace.

AW: The poem “Smoke” deals with college-age drug use and refers to the activity as something that might “postpone the inevitable confrontation with our lives.” I love that line. Do you see this collection as a “confrontation” with life? Something that grapples with all the things you weren’t willing to deal with at a younger age?

TG: Sometimes a confrontation, but more often just a basic acknowledgment of issues from the past. I think it goes back to fate again, and the inability to change the necessary lessons and misdirections that got me here. I was a pothead and daily drug user for 20 years of my life, until my son was born, when I went cold turkey, but I’ve never seen it as something that needed to be confronted. I think that particular line and the “inevitable confrontation” are more about entering adulthood and how, at that stage of life, we find ways to avoid obligation; at least that’s what I did, until someone smaller came along who was more important than the nonsense, someone who I would give my life to.

AW: You mentioned to me when I initially reached out about this interview that “this book was born at SAFTA in the Writer’s Coop.” I stayed in the Writer’s Co-op, too, and certain lines (particularly the poem “Maybe Mice”) immediately brought me back to my time there. How would you describe your experience at SAFTA, and what is it about the environment/the landscape you found so inspiring?

TG: I’ve often said my stay at SAFTA was a transformative experience. I was able to disconnect from my work and family obligations for an entire week and just isolate myself in that little cabin in the woods to read and write. It was something I had never been able to do before. When I arrived, it was 80°, but two days later, a cold front pushed through, dropping half an inch of snow. To be able to see the farm and the forest transform the way it did led to my own proverbial transformation, and I wrote, unhindered, drafts of 9 poems during the week, an output I’d never experienced before. One thing I noticed in particular was the way the cold amplified sound—the birds, the squirrels, the mice in the rafters overhead, even hearing the sheep in the pasture half a mile away. There was an overwhelming sense of being less a part of the world, yet finally being in the world. The entire experience of being at SAFTA influenced me enough that it led to me buying my own farm “away from it all” two years later, albeit with goats and pigs, but no sheep, at least not yet.

AW: “Invisible Birds” relates heard but unseen birds to voices over the Internet. This poem is fantastic in how it shifts its focus from birds that may or may not be there to friends (though they could also be considered strangers), the narrator’s son is talking to online. But it seems to take a rather innocent take on the world of online culture (which is actually refreshing), framing it as something as innocuous as birds heard outside of a cabin. Can you speak about this perspective of the “online world” breaking into the real world? And if I’m overanalyzing this, please speak to your intentions with the poem and what you hope readers can take away from it.

TG: Another poem written at SAFTA, this one reflecting on speaking with my teenage son (who I missed terribly) over the phone while hearing birds in the trees I could not see, while he also spoke to other people on his computer, people whom he could not see. I really appreciate your analysis, and see it not only as the online world breaking into the real world, but also as the unseen world (the birds, the voices) finding a way into the known, shared world. This against the backdrop of my son’s dealings with his ADHD (another unseen force) and that online world which his diagnosis led him to inhabit, and my own helplessness in the face of his situation—a helplessness which the end of the poem tries to make clear is really unfounded; as my son consoles, he is just fine. I should also mention that this poem owes a huge debt to David Baker’s beautiful poem “Hyper,” in which he writes of his own daughter’s diagnosis of ADHD.

AW: “The Hidden Spring” speaks to time and place. On November 24, 2017, “[A] bagpiper played ‘She Moves Through the Fair,’” then exactly two years later, “fiddlehead ferns” take up the tune. This makes me think of the classic novel Slaughterhouse Five and the much more recent novel Transcription in the sense that, to paraphrase from a well-known film, everything is happening at once all the time, even memories. This aspect of being a human fascinates me very much. The idea that all our memories shape whatever is currently happening to us. Can you speak about the significance of memory in your work?

TG: Yes, me too! I’m also fascinated by the idea that we inhabit our memories in the present to become ourselves. So much so that the poems in the book I’m currently working on, tentatively titled “Anamnesis,” try to manipulate narrative structures of time by merging the past and present into a unified experience so that memory, as it were, is always present in the now. In this book, though, I think memory is more Wordsworthian in nature as an active force that can be drawn from to bridge the gap between childhood innocence and adult concerns in order to arrive at some semblance of tranquility, as in “The Hidden Spring,” which is really a love poem to my wife. Consequently, time is then differentiated from memory as more of a physical force that tries to separate us from memory as it pushes us towards mortality. The poem “Xiuhtecuhtli” (named after the Aztec god of time) tries to express this idea by looking at the shape of time as having a distinct beginning and ending, unlike memory, which is shapeless, ever-present, and ethereal.  It’s one of my favorite poems in the book, but that’s also because I got to write it about my pet pig, Porcini, and she’s adorable. See!

AW: You have really great opening lines. For example, in “Pretense,” you open with, “After losing my shirt.” And in “Smoke,” you open with, “Honest to God, I used to know a guy named Vinny Christ.” Can you speak about your thoughts on opening lines, their importance, and maybe quote a favorite of another author if you have one?

TG: Thank you for saying that. I feel like every poem I write is prompted by the opening line, meaning the opening line is the first thing I come up with and put to paper, and sets the course for the map the poem is going to follow. And while the line may suggest a tone, or a subject, or a narrative structure, I love that I don’t necessarily have to follow those suggestions. I think back to my MFA at The University of Alabama, where one of my dear teachers, Thomas Rabbitt, used to ride me about my opening lines because I always started poems with time markings, as in “December and…” or “I’m nine years old and…”. He pointed out that I was doing this because I was beholden to the yoke of narrative exposition, establishing setting, and once I saw what he meant, there was suddenly no going back. Now, I see the opening line not as a part of a narrative equation, but more as a part of the lyrical discovery every poem is trying to make. And concerning favorite opening lines by other authors, there are just so many I wouldn’t know where to begin. (See what I did there?)

AW: And lastly, is there anything you would like to promote or anything I didn’t ask you about that you would like to talk about?

TG: Yes, thank you so much for such great questions, and for the opportunity to talk about my book and my poetry. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that, in addition to writing poetry for the past 35 years, I’ve also been printing it through my work with my limited edition fine press, Aureole Press. So much of my work as a poet is informed by my work as a printer. I’ve been setting type, letterpress printing, hand binding, and publishing books since 1989, when my dual life as a poet and printer began. In that span, my press has published over 40 books by such writers as Philip Levine, Naomi Shihab Nye, Carl Philips, Peter Everwine, Tu Fu, and, most recently, the poet Katie Hartsock. Since 1997, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to get to share my passions and teach both poetry writing and bookmaking at the University of Toledo, where my press is currently housed. My website is aureolepress.weebly.com, and if you’re ever in Toledo, please stop by the typography laboratory, and I’ll happily take you on a tour while we talk poetry. Thank you so much, again.

In a Field of Hallowed Be is available through Terrapin Books

Timothy Geiger is the author of the poetry collections Weatherbox, winner of the 2019 Vern Rutsala Poetry Prize from Cloudbank Books; The Curse of Pheromones from Main Street Rag Press; and Blue Light Factory from Spoon River Poetry Press. His newest collection, In a Field of Hallowed Be, was published in September 2024 from Terrapin Books, and received an Honorable Mention from the 2025 Eric Hoffer Award in both the Grand Prize and DaVinci Eye categories. He is also the author of ten chapbooks, most recently Holler (APoGee Press, 2021). His work has received a Pushcart Prize XVII and a Holt, Rinehart and Winston Award in Literature, as well as many state and local grants from Ohio, Minnesota, and Alabama. He runs a small farm in Northwest Ohio, raising goats, chickens, ducks, turkeys, and pigs. The proprietor of Aureole Press, a letterpress imprint publishing contemporary poetry, he is a professor of English at The University of Toledo, where he teaches Creative Writing, Poetry, and Book Arts.

Ada Wofford (they/them) holds MAs in both English and Library Studies. In addition to working at a rare book shop, they are an associate poetry editor at Sundress Publications, the editor of We Call Upon the Author to Explain, and the non-fiction editor at Stirring: A Literary Collection. Their writing has appeared in The Blue Nib, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Autostraddle, Capable Magazine, Sundress Reads, and more. Their chapbook, I Remember Learning How to Dive, was published in 2020, part of which earned them a Pushcart Prize nomination. 

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “Writing Without Words: On Gesture,” a workshop led by Stacey Balkun on Wednesday, May 13th from 6:00-7:30 PM EST. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: SAFTA). Please note that we are now setting up registrations in advance of the workshop. Register for this event here.

As writers, our medium is words: written or spoken; mumbled or sung. We share language with other genres—like music and theatre—but what other tools do these media have in conjunction with words, and how can we learn from them? In this generative workshop, we will expand our understanding of our art form and craft our own poetry or short prose pieces that are driven by more-than-words.

Drawing inspiration from instrumental songs, mime acts, and experimental poetry, we will devote the majority of our session to studying gesture: a vital tool for every art form. We will consider artistic examples ranging from the band Daikaiju to the painter Kay Sage as we engage in conversation and participate in low-stakes, wordless activities designed to spark our imaginations, before quietly writing with the guidance of a prompt, with an opportunity to share.

While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciative may make donations directly to Stacey Balkun via Venmo or Paypal at staceymbalkun@gmail.com

Stacey Balkun is the author of Sweetbitter and co-editor of Fiolet & Wing. Her creative and critical work has appeared in Attached to the Living World, Best New Poets, Mississippi Review, and several other volumes. Stacey holds a PhD in Literature from the University of Mississippi, Oxford, where she was awarded the Holdich Scholar Award, and an MFA in Poetry from Fresno State. She has been granted fellowships and grants from the Modern Language Association, PEN America, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in support of her writing.  Stacey teaches online for The Poetry Barn and the University of New Orleans.

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Layla Lenhardt. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, May 31^st, from 2 to 4 pm EST via Zoom. Join us at the link tiny.utk.edu/sundress with the password “safta”.

Poetry Xfit isn’t about throwing tires or heavy ropes, but the idea of confusing our muscles is the same. You will receive ideas, guidelines, and more as part of this generative workshop series in order to complete three poems in two hours. A new set of prompts will be provided after the writers have written collaboratively for thirty minutes. The goal is to create material that can be later modified and transformed into artwork rather than producing flawless final versions. The event is open to prose authors as well!

The theme for May’s Poetry Xfit is “Travel.” You may be writing in your home or other confined space, but here is an invitation to let your mind wander and visit  places beyond the room you’re in. Join us as we meander through the spaces, times, and locations we have been to or want to explore through writing.

Layla Lenhardt is an American poet currently based out of Indianapolis. She is the author of “Mother Tongue” (Main Street Rag 2023). She earned her undergrad from Washington & Jefferson college and has an MFA in progress at IU. Professionally, she is a gemologist. 

This event is brought to you in part by grants provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

While this is a free event, donations can be made to Layla Lenhardt on CashApp at  laylalenhardt.poet@gmail.com and to the Sundress Academy for the Arts here: https://sundress-publications.square.site/product/donate-to-sundress/107?cs=true

I grew up in the South. I’m sure you can imagine how that experience went for a young, autistic, trans man. My only escape was reading and my only form of expression was writing. Despite the love and acceptance I got from my mom, I struggled to form attachments to anyone other than fictional characters. By high school, I felt like my entire personality was a facade, an amalgamation of the people around me and the traits deemed “acceptable” by society. I couldn’t openly express myself and that repression started getting me into trouble.

My mind wandered and I found myself struggling to focus in class, too worried about what might happen if I ever dropped the mask. I stopped reading and writing. My grades plummeted and many of my teachers said I’d be lucky to graduate high school. They were almost right. I’d just barely finished the first three years of high school, passing classes by the skin of my teeth. Spring semester of my senior year, I was already flunking two classes. That was when COVID hit. All of the senior teachers bumped everyone’s grades up to passing and promised they wouldn’t go back down. They told us if we wanted better grades, we could attend Zoom classes during lockdown to improve them. I, however, was so burnt out by that point that the thought of doing so gave me panic attacks. Graduation rolled around and I was in the bottom of my class. I still graduated though!

After high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Everyone told me to “go to college” and “get a degree” and “do something meaningful with my life.” But I’d barely made it through high school and I couldn’t stand the thought of putting myself through that again. I worked a handful of dead-end jobs, got some tattoos, skated through life doing almost nothing. In 2021, I decided to apply to Cosmetology School. It was fun. It gave me something productive to fill my endless days. That experience made me fall in love with learning again.

I moved out of Oklahoma and up to Virginia with my parents in 2024 and started community college. I fell in love with writing again. I started writing more poetry, getting published in The Bloomin’ Onion and Wingless Dreamer. I graduated from community college in a year and transferred to a university, from which I will graduate at the end of 2026. My biggest dream in life is to write something that would make high school me feel seen and safe.

Greyson Finch (he/him) is a poet from Oklahoma. Throughout his life, he’s struggled with his mental health and childhood trauma while also growing up queer in the South. He uses that to write pieces that speak to the soul. Pieces that people like him can read to know they’re not alone. He’s been published in The Bloomin’ Onion and Wingless Dreamer. He can be found on twitter at @Greyson_Finch77 and Instagram at @greysonfinchwrites

Don’t do drugs! Read instead!

When looking to get out of your head, most people do drugs. Smoking, drinking, whatever the preferred method, substances are a surefire way to escape the impending doom of our reality. As I don’t do drugs or drink–on principle, because of my autoimmune diseases, and because it simply doesn’t get me out of my head–I turn to books. I found this escape at an early age, and just like a drug, I became addicted quickly. I was a user. Still am. But I like to justify my vice with the fact that it’s not a vice at all. Sure maybe the desire to escape reality through fiction does not come from the healthiest most grounded version of Abby that probably exists somewhere. But, hey, who’s going to stop me from reading? With this in mind, I tend to gravitate towards the furthest from reality fiction that I can get my hands on. And quite frankly, sometimes the “worse” it is, the better! By “worse” I don’t necessarily mean poorly written. I more so mean a “zero brain power necessary” type of book. Anyway, how could you find a good book from a bad one if you have nothing to compare it to? Now I must clarify, this brainless descriptor is in no way an insult to the books or authors. In fact, I am using this description to show that as silly as a book may be, reading is reading and there is always value in that.

Thus, I thought very long and hard about what books I should tell people are my favorite, as this reflects directly who I am, perhaps what I stand for, at least what I think about. Maybe I am overthinking it. Maybe most people don’t think twice about their coworker’s latest read. The world isn’t a vile judgmental dark place, and I, of course, have never thought less about someone from their reading choice! I’m lying. I have and will continue to judge people whose favorite authors are the worst person you’ve ever heard of. I definitely don’t encourage consuming books from unethical, immoral, or plain horrible people. Doing your research is incredibly important and consuming a “zero brain power” book doesn’t mean leaving all your standards at the first turn of the cover page.

So here are some of my favorites. Books I have thought nothing of while reading, thought about everything years after reading, and books that now have permanent places on my skin. My favorite go to when I’m looking to entertain my maladaptive-daydreaming-tendencies is The Once Upon a Broken Heart series. Somehow I have left the actual first book back at my Mom’s, so pictured is the third and final book, also my favorite, that I have reread an embarrassing amount of times. I usually pick this up first thing after a particularly long semester when I’m ready to pretend I’m a girl discovering romantasy for the first time. It’s magical, it’s got vampires, it’s got a female hero who embraces being feminine with a slow burn enemies to lovers. What more could middle school Abby ask for?

On the gothic side of the romantasy genre, my shameless indulgence of the brainless book persuasion led me to The Shepherd King duology– a must read. I splurged on the gorgeous special edition hardcovers and seriously would pay to read this for the first time again. Another enemies to lovers (we have a theme here), the story follows Elspeth, a young woman who finds herself working with the royals she has been trying to avoid to rid their kingdom of a mysterious dark magic that is taking over their world. Navigating a deadly fog and staying under the noses of the royals she loathes, she not only is trying to save her loved ones, but also herself from the ever present Nightmare, an entity that lives in her head. This series is not as “zero brain power” as others, but it serves no higher purpose than being fun.

Indulging in your guilty pleasures is a necessary part of enjoying reading, but so is reading for a new perspective. No one should be pompous about their academic reads, but we all should have them. It’s all about finding the balance. I’m a libra so that’s basically my entire thing. Therefore, I can’t go on about “useless” books without talking about one incredibly useful, and deeply emotional read. I could go on about The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros for a very long time. Her story telling through vignettes has inspired me more than several other books combined. Exploring coming of age, poverty, and desiring to be anywhere but where you are through a Chicana girl growing up in lower class Chicago, Cisneros captivates every emotion you could ever feel. This book spoke to my own childhood in a way I could never quite articulate myself. I will forever be thankful for that.

In the category of books I haven’t stopped thinking about, My Year of Rest and Relaxation had to make an appearance. I wouldn’t describe this book as one I really enjoyed reading. I think it’s hard to enjoy a book so deeply rooted in the exploration of grief. Yet I can’t seem to put it out of my mind that there’s a piece of me in these unlikeable characters. I felt the grief of the main character as though it was my own, and I think it helped me reflect on the parts of myself I would rather ignore. My Year of Rest and Relaxation is not just a book to me, but a personal state of existence I have been in and successfully gotten myself out of. I recommend to anyone who has experienced life altering sadness, especially the selfish kind. We all should be selfish sometimes, and then we must come out of it.

I could not discuss my favorite books without mentioning my favorite author of all time, Kate DiCamillo. She is a children’s author, but to me, her prose is poetry the way symbolism ebbs and flows. Depth seeps from the pages, and I already plan to tattoo more of the characters from her books in the future. I have The Tiger Rising girl riding a tiger on my arm and have a spot on my knee dedicated to Edward Tulane. A brief summary cannot captivate how much her work means to me. It started when my Mom would read us these books to fall asleep and I would rest to the sound of her voice filled with these words. I hope someday I can have the effect on others that these stories have on me.

The list of books on my TBR is ever growing and far outnumbers the list of books I have actually read. Thus my bookshelf at my current place is tiny and full of mainly what I have yet to read, not a collection of all of the ones I own. Despite its limited space, I have places for all of these books there. Even the “zero brain power ones”. Especially those ones. Everyone should read something useless, because no book ever really is. Therefore I say, do not do drugs! Read instead!

Abigail Palmer (she/her) is a current English student at the University of Tennessee. Born in the north but raised in the south, she has always had a place in the in-between of things. In between reader and writer, student and teacher, chronically ill and healthy–she is seeking to defy such labels to become whoever, wherever, however she desires to be. That currently looks like a preschool teacher, beloved (of course) daughter, adored (obviously) girlfriend, up-and-coming cat mom, and a forever nominee of the “Super Opinionated” award. If she’s not incessantly analyzing every piece of media she consumes, she’s probably intellectualizing her feelings while making ultra specific playlists that no one can relate to but her! You can find her on Instagram @zer0cooll.