{"id":28175,"date":"2015-02-17T06:30:59","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T17:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=28175"},"modified":"2015-02-16T20:03:16","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T07:03:16","slug":"the-tuesday-poem-refeaturing-tim-jones-thinning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/02\/17\/the-tuesday-poem-refeaturing-tim-jones-thinning\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tuesday Poem: Refeaturing Tim Jones — “Thinning”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thinning<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We age in birthdays and anniversaries, gatherings
\nof welcome and farewell. \u201cYou\u2019re looking good,\u201d we say,
\ndespite receding hairlines, bellies rounding by the year –<\/p>\n

too little exercise, too much time
\nspent in front of screens. Babies
\nare now children; children, amazingly, teens,<\/p>\n

embarked on their own, mysterious journeys.
\nWith offspring pairing up and parents fading,
\nwe will soon be grandparents, elders,<\/p>\n

joining Grey Power, plotting world cruises,
\nor clinging on bravely till a resentful State
\nthrows spatters of coin at our needs.<\/p>\n

Once there was a world of manual typewriters
\nand Gestetner stencils. We were the coming thing, and then,
\nthe moment varying for each of us, history rolled past<\/p>\n

and left us in its wake. There are more gatherings
\nahead: phone calls, arrangements.
\nIt will be sudden. It will be long-expected and<\/p>\n

(we say behind our hands) really, a relief.
\nAt the funeral home. At St Mary\u2019s. On the short,
\nspringy grass next to the family crypt.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, coffee, comfort food, a few
\ndiscreet but welcome drinks, the chatter
\nresuming once again. The relatives<\/p>\n

puzzled, trying to work out who we are.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re looking good,\u201d we say, the conversation
\nconducted in whispers, in echoes, thinning.<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a0 Tim Jones<\/p>\n

~ from Men Briefly Explained<\/em><\/strong>, Interactive Press, 2011<\/p>\n

Reproduced here with permission<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

I originally featured Thinning<\/em> on October 25, 2011<\/a> (yes, in that<\/em> year), as part of celebrating the release of Tim’s third collection, Men Briefly Explained<\/em><\/strong> (Interactive Press.) As I observed at the time, I “like the poem’s form and also its universality\u2014a commonality of human experience that I instantly recognised at a \u201cgut\u201d level. “<\/em>Thinning” also made me appreciate the versatility and depth of Tim\u2019s poetry yet again, especially when juxtaposed with other recent featured poems such as Shetland Ponies, Haast Beach, (on the Tuesday Poem Hub on August 16<\/a>),\u00a0 Men at Sea<\/a>, and happened to meet<\/a>.”
\n.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"timjones\"<\/a>About The Poet:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tim Jones is a New Zealand poet, author and editor who was awarded both the New Zealand Society of Authors Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature and a Sir Julius Vogel Award in 2010. His latest book, co-edited with PS Cottier, is The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry<\/em><\/strong> (2014).<\/p>\n

For more, see http:\/\/timjonesbooks.blogspot.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"TuesPoem\"<\/a>To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thinning We age in birthdays and anniversaries, gatherings of welcome and farewell. \u201cYou\u2019re looking good,\u201d we say, despite receding hairlines, bellies rounding by the year – too little exercise, too much time spent in front of screens. Babies are now children; children, amazingly, teens, embarked on their own, mysterious journeys. With offspring pairing up and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28175"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28179,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28175\/revisions\/28179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}