timothy Liu

"My Asianness, my Mormon roots, my homosexuality, are but a part of my being and therefore but a part of my poetry."

These words from Timothy Liu stood out the most to me while reading his interview. This sentence helped me to look at his poems from a different lens. Knowing that all of the things that Timothy Liu is associated with is only a part of what his poetry brings to us the reader. Because I would say I have more homophobic tendencies, I was a little afraid on my own biased opinion or outlook on the poetry knowing that it's material was mostly a gay perspective, what I then learned was that I could look at the poems differently and not have a bias outlook on the poetry itself. The format of the three poems are so different but I think that all three have a language and rhythm that create beautiful and natural images of experience in the poems. I find the natural instincts the poem create quite refreshing. Take the first couple lines of More than Half The Leaves Already Down "Dragging that plastic sheet across the lawn like a canoe filled with the season's last leaves"... already you are set up with a image that captures you. instead of relating everything back to homosexuality in the poems I seemed to focus on the fact that Timothy Liu is a remarkable poet no matter if he is gay or not.