IBPC judge for J-F-M 2012: John Timpane! Options

[rus bowden]

It is my pleasure to announce to you that our IBPC judge for Winter 2012 is TV/Media/Books Writer/Editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer John Timpane, and I met him there. He is intelligent with a good soul, which is another way of saying a gentleman and a scholar, truly both and with the natural presence that comes with the pairing. He is good to meet, and then good to know.

You might ask why it took so long, then, to "get him" as a judge. I try to balance backgrounds, genres, demographics, and such, working with lists of who's possible now, even timely, pulling more names into last time's list; versus who we've recently had, and try to be true to all things that would have to do with fairness. Unlike other invitations to judge, his culminated in a cellphone call last week.

At his blog Here Comes Everything, he refers to himself as "scribbler in essays, poems, tunes; hard trier in the Features Department of the Philadelphia Inquirer; wearer of funny hats." And it's under that last one, the "funny hats" one, where we'll find through the links below, John's versatility and contributions, both inside and outside The Inquirer.

Here is a good catch-all link to get recent items on the web, which were written by him: news.Google.com: author:"John Timpane"

To find his articles at The Inquirer, use this link: search.Philly.com: "john timpane"

Let's turn over a hat, and find some of his books online, some of which have previews, and the first one up will be "Poetry for dummies": books.Google.com: inauthor:"john timpane". And let's add in Amazon, Borders, and Barnes and Noble.

Here is an interview with John, with lots of bio in it, for a proper introduction: Wild River Review: This Has Never Felt Like a Job. There are two pages, so at the bottom of that page, click on to part 2.

As noted in that interview, you'll find his translation of Song of the Blessed One: The Bhagavad-Gita, Canto 11 [1]: Vision of the Universal Form. He has also translated Rilke, as this video avails: YouTube: Rainer Maria Rilke: "Der Schauende" (1901).

Let's look at some of his poetry on the web, the written first. Back to his blog, where he keeps links to his longer available writings, the first one posted, which means the last one down, is to Nineteen Eighty-Nine: A Chronicle. And here are three in Wild River Review: October; Dusty and Bugs; and With a Gift of Earrings.

There is a written poem by him, with audio, at PPL’s Poetry Podcast Blog here: John Timpane: In Town. Add to that this written essay with audio, at WHYY Radio : This I Believe Philadelphia.

Here is his page at PennSound: John Timpane.

Here in three parts is a video of a reading he gave at University City Arts League two and a half years ago: John Timpane 01, John Timpane 02 and John Timpane 03.



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