Upstate Trilogy

The poems in Upstate Trilogy attempt to examine God's creation through the explorations of nature, human creativity, and human experience--the world experienced through body, soul, and spirit. In particular this book of poems takes its context in the place called Upstate--the other New York from Lake Erie in the west to the Hudson River in the east. T. P. Bird uses his own thirty-five years of living in Upstate as the content of this examination--particularly in the years 1988-2009--drawn from his field notes taken while hiking the upstate countryside; his receiving early twentieth-century amateur photographs, and the stories they might tell us; and observations from his personal journal. Bird sees this exploration as a celebration--a celebration of time, place, wonder, and God's marvelous blessings.

T. P. Bird is a retired industrial drafter/designer and Christian minister, having pastored Wesleyan churches in Upstate New York, West Virginia, and Virginia. He has published in a number of journals and is the author of four full collections: Mystery and Imperfection; Somewhere beyond the Body (Wipf & Stock); American Narratives; and A Loose Rendering. Bird lives with his wife, Sally, in Lexington, Kentucky.