Tim Kiely

Hymn to the Smoke

Whether gazing into the eye of a blackbird, at the pieces of a broken glass or up at the stars, these poems dwell in the fertile space between the small events of life, letting meaning crystallise out of the silence.

ISBN 978-1-912876-51-8

Paperback

36 pages

£6.00 +P&P

THE AUTHOR

Tim Kiely is a London-based criminal barrister and poet whose work has been widely published in magazines and anthologies. He is a member of Poetry on the Picket Line and contributor to Poets for the Planet and the Poets Versus collective. Tim is currently Chair of the Tower Hamlets Green Party and ran for the Greens as the London Assembly Candidate for City and East in 2021.

‘This intricately formed collection is filled… with fleeting things. It is always moving, soaring and plunging, zooming in and out between planets and windowsills. Temporary bodies and transient states want to be capturgb(255, 0, 0) but can’t be – the changing fabric of everything reminds the reader that the more time we spend analysing substance, the more quickly it can evaporate.’

Lizzy Turner

‘Archly economical in expression, sumptuously rich in texture and detail, Kiely’s poetry zones in on moments and ideas until they catch the light anew - like brushstrokes bursting on the page.’

Amy Acre

‘While Kiely’s poems function as powerful ruminations upon first reading, they truly resonate in the ordinary moments sometimes afterwards, when you’re drinking a coffee or waking from a nap and suddenly a poem returns, sharpened by time… an exercise in holding the poem’s gaze even after it turns away.’

Maddie Godfrey

JOINT WINNER OF THE INDIGO-FIRST PAMPHLET PRIZE 2020