Even not knowing his poem "Against Theory," a reader would recognize that Timothy Geiger as poet writes without concern for the fashions of the day. He's his own man. Such integrity accounts for much of the pleasures his poems offer, and even informs his use of language, which he wields with both authority and a fine touch as in poem after poem he investigates the Self in the World, probing his subject, laying it bare, and naming his discoveries. In that investigation he ranges from supermarket checkout lines to the far reaches of space, from a father and son's difficult relationship to the nature of time itself. Such range is accompanied by an important balance: human misery is present here alongside the poet's determination to celebrate whatever he can. In fact, his celebration of the word "aquamarine" is enough to inspire complete trust in him as a poet--other poets may mumble or shout, but Geiger is a singer, and a good story-teller as well, richly imaginative. The question in one poem, "What if heaven plans to judge us / by how we live in our dreams?" would grace Neruda's Book of Questions and is a measure of Geiger's imagination. Nor is it surprising that in another poem he tells us he wants to "leave / the humbug behind," adding, "this is how to survive," for on page after page in The Curse of Pheromones, a book that is a blessing rather than a curse, Geiger leaves the humbug behind and reminds us how to survive.

--Philip Dacey