The Acoustic Properties of Ancient People by Michael Tims

Michael Tims has an intelligence seldom encountered. His innate curiosity and remarkably varied life experience has provided him with an extraordinary body of knowledge. Not simply because knowing particulars affords him a greater appreciation of singular phenomena, but rather, because he understands that all idiosyncrasies are , in some way,  part of a larger, unifying truth.

–Bobby Donovan, Director, Curator, Hyattstown Mill Arts Project

“The Acoustic Properties of Ancient People” takes us to new places, some out of time and others rooted in modern life. These are poems filled with intellect and heart, informed by the writer’s interest in science and spirituality. His images help me to decipher these bewildering times as the writer himself quests for meaning in our world. I find comfort in his line “The future of the universe has not yet been determined.” To my amusement, Tims’ writing is filled with quirky, slightly off-center observations and perceptions. I find this collection a delightful voyage to places ancient and imagined, and I encourage you to take this unexpected journey – don’t look back, just keep moving.

–John C. Wilson, Visual artist and theatre director, Creative Director, Maryland University of Integrative Health

Michael Tims goes deep. Through auto-memory into the ancestral Ata-memory, and past that to probe the Ur-memory, rooted within deep-time, beyond words, beyond even breath and flesh, down to the molecular, the slow pulse of metamorphic rock, of congealing stardust. Along the way, he confronts anger, loss, and redemption, channeling tribal harmonies tuned to the counterpoint throb of desire and denial. Read this book slowly. It took eons to be born.

–Luther Jett, author Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of my Father, FLP