I am thrilled! Big Table Publishing requested to put out a "Best of" anthology of my work, and they would select it! I said..."wow, and thanks, and can I put in some new work which would add the length of a completed new book of mostly unpublished poems and flash ficiton?" I also asked, "Can I changed the proposed title, and the order of the selections?" I'm a dick that way.
They had just produced an anthology, of Doug Holder’s greatest works, titled The Essential Doug Holder. Right after that I was asked by Big
Table, my publisher of many years if I would be interested in releasing The Essential Timothy Gager, of which
they would select. To be so honored, do you
think I would just go with whatever they want? Well, it is words and the meaning of words are
important, so this is where my head goes.
As
defined by the Oxford Dictionay:
Essential-absolutely necessary,
extremely important.
I don’t feel essential, I never
have. Food, Water, Oxygen, and Human Contact. Essential. Essential. Essential.
Essential. My poems, my fiction, my excerpts. Non-essential. Non-essential.
Non-essential. Important to me? Yes. Important to others? I’ve discovered there
are a few people I’ve made some sort of mark on, but I’ve never been essential.
I am even classified in my job as a non-essential employee, but I have
essential enough to draw a paycheck for the past twenty-plus years. My sperm may fit that description as it was
essential in producing my children. That fits the definition pretty well, but,
also not as a title. Also, this by no means a dig on Doug Holder, or his title because I have nothing but 100% respect for Doug.
Here is a draft of the Table of Contents - which should be close to the end product.
GROUNDED, New poems, 2022
Runway
Purple Robe
Although
I Never Called You Beautiful
Beach Rose
Defining Unnatural,
Non-Scientific Thunder Bolts
Reversing the Rain
Window
at the Oceanic Hotel
Shared
Bathroom at the Oceanic Hotel
The
Holy Orchestrated
365,000 Poems Written About You
A Sonnet First Seen at Walnut
Street Café February 2019
The
People of Star Island
Walk
Until The Legs Go Numb
Denouement
Addictions
At
the Farm in Elkton, Maryland In Memory of Jones Purcell
Dog
On Zoom
COVID
Fears
Deductions
and Ends
The Suicidiversary: Years and A
Day Late
Opposite
Magnetic Poles
Dinner
Party
Streaming
While Napping
Global
Conditions
Seasonal
Fire Effect thoughts on The Bootleg Fire
Thoughts
over the Deluge
Science
Political
Climate
Occupy Forever for Blaine
Hebbel
What
Dante Learned
Introduction
to a Séance at Turning Tables: Delphine
de Girardin for Victor Hugo
The Great Appearing Act
Not
Perfect Does Not Make Practice
Mutualism
In The Obituary of Paul Felopulos
The
Haunted Mile
Vaccination
Extravaganza
It
Happens in Spring
The
Attenuation of Wide Ranges of Thoughts
Somnambulism
Nighthawks
There
Once Was a Harvest
Ode to a Tree Cut Down
Can
I Fly You a Drink? a found poem from an
internet article with internet comments
How
to Be a Werewolf
Family
Silence for Sixty-Two Years
Frosting
On a Barren Field
Inlet
Sunset
We
Are the Ones Left on the Beach For
Natalie
God and You
Tuumaq
Christmas 2019
Never
Heard at Home
patents held by charles h. gager and charles
fowler
Father’s
Day/Funeral
Sleep,
My Dear Poets
Jones’
Song
Living
with Rabbits
I
am Alone (Watching Bad Movies during the Pandemic)
after the movie Fathers and Daughters
(Warning Spoiler Alert)
Things I May Say
How to Revise a Poem
SECRETS AND COMPARTMENTS, New flash fictions, 2019-2023
Nor’easter
The
Kicker Loses the Game
Late
Night TV Ad, Summer 2020
Rabbit Care
She
Does (Doesn’t) Exist.
The
Training of Staff
It’s
a New Year
After Getting High
Can
Anybody Do Anything?
Encasements,
Compartments, Boxes
The
Resigned Life of a Condo Trustee
The
Drowning Girl
Beautiful Prayers
The
New Coach
The
Tinkerer
The
Strength of a Single Lion (A Political Jaunt)
Airport 20/20
Annual
Cookout-(sung to a nursery rhythm)
The First Four Steps
Walking up a Cliff
Kill the Baby Makers
The
Pillows of Society
Times Square During Lunch Hour
Predators
and Prey
Perfect
Crimes from an Imperfect Man
Ambien
Beatle
The Cost of Love
How
to Stop Birds from Flying Into Windows
Hey,
Benni
I
Saw Hell
The
Off-Season
How
You Met Your Husband
Up
and Atom
Iconic
Folks Talking by a Fire
Working on a Marriage
Why I am Not a Penguin
Her
Hotel
Beloved
Do Us Part
Poke
Becoming Ice
The Retired Poet Bought a Falafel
Truck
Suggestions
for My Ashes
from
THE SAME CORNER OF THE BAR
Sitting
drunk on a cooler in my backyard
Arlington
Catholic
A
Do-Dah-Day
The
same corner of the Bar
What
were you doing when the Towers Fell?
Insect
from WE NEEDED A NIGHT OUT
My Heart
the Car
Liquid
Thoughts While Driving
Rorschach while looking at the
Clouds
I Need Enemies
SEVEN (for my boy)
Giving Myself a Haircut
from THIS IS WHERE YOU GO WHEN
YOU ARE GONE
Rabbit Maranville
I've Drunk The Holidays
My Uncle Coming Back from Vietnam with
a Stump
Disowned by most of The Family
Waking up around noon
reply to someone who said my poems are all sad
your personal ground zero for Franz Wright’s writer’s block
from
THESE
POEMS ARE NOT PINK CLOUDS
Hit the road now Jack
Once Upon an Ocean Town
On the way home from Maine,
1970
Summer Job, Concord, Ma.
Somewhere South
my dear god, we are all so small
Night in New York City
The
Things I’d Say
from TREATING A SICK ANIMAL
Mangiare per vivere e non vivere per
mangiare
Hidden Hoboken
Your
Vasectomy Journal
Punchless
Jimmy Collins
The Top of Grace’s Upper Lip
Just
Dessert
The Short Marriage of a Bride and Groom
ESSAY
Experience, Strength,
and Hope
from
ANTI-SOCIAL
NETWORK
Mid-Life Diner
Like
the Moths in the Night
The
Enabler
April Ends
Recipe
for a Great Poem for
the poet Kenneth Clark
Ode to
the Wormwood
When It is
Still Winter
at
eleven-fifty-nine
ESSAY
A Bit On The Bombing
from
THE SHUTTING DOOR
Walking Out of the Woods
I
have mostly Nightmares
The
Shutting Door
Missteps
You Knew Me Before
The
poems at my House
Meeting with Father Vincent
When you live by Yourself
from
CHIEF JAY STRONGBOW IS REAL
Throw Certainty Out in the Air
like a Lasso Reflections on Alton Sterling
Didn’t
see it Before I Stepped in it
Prayer By a Stream
Sobriety
How We Exist
This is where I Am (when
here)
A
Poem For Forever
Unfit
Father
Cross Country Family Vacation
When I Think of my Childhood
Hot Biscuits, Country Ham at The
Loveless Motel
There’s A Fly in My Soup
NOVEL EXCERT from THE THURSDAY APPOINTMENTS OF BILL
SLOAN
Inside the Mind of
Brad’s Therapist
NOVEL
EXCERPT from GRAND SLAMS: A COMING OF EGGS STORY
Kayak
Kenny
from
EVERYDAY
THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT ELEPHANTS
Jack
How Penguins Break
What Are The Reasons They Hang On?
How Do You Love a Capitalist?
I Look At You Through Glass and Water
Full Moon
If We Don’t Think, We Will Sleep
Everyday There is so Much About
Elephants
from SPREADING
LIKE WILDFLOWERS
Bromley’s
Funeral Home
The
Miracles of Recovery
Still
There Are Boxes
Faith
At
a Cookout for Poets
How
to Unring a Bell
from 2020 POEMS
21
Lines / 2020 / Covid 19
Guesses From a Stable Genius
Kleptoparasitic
Unformed
Relief
reply
to someone who said you should write a poem about her
When
You Have This Connection
Long
Distance Thinking
Ballet
of Surrender
ESSAY
It Sucks Getting Old
NOVEL
EXCERPT from JOE THE SALAMANDER
Adrian’s
Prologue