Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Search - List of Books by Timothy Murphy

"Drug smugglers often use juveniles to carry their shipments into the U.S. because they know the juveniles will not be prosecuted if caught." -- Timothy Murphy
Timothy Murphy (born 1951, Hibbing, Minnesota) is an American poet, farmer, and businessman. He has published two collections of poetry that have been widely reviewed. His work has been compared to that of Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson and Richard Wilbur, and Wilbur himself has described Murphy as "a mature and greatly accomplished poet." Writing of Murphy's second collection, Very Far North, critic Stephen Burt notes, "When Murphy sounds bad, he sounds obviously bad, like bad late Frost...but his good poems are poems Frost, or Jonson, might have admired."

Murphy studied at Yale University under Robert Penn Warren, graduating (B.A.) as Scholar of the House in Poetry in 1972. However, Warren advised Murphy against an academic career, urging him instead to return to the "rich soil" of his rural roots. Murphy returned to Minnesota, and subsequently became involved in several farming and manufacturing enterprises in North Dakota, experiences which are reflected in his later writing.

Murphy published his first collection of poetry, The Deed Of Gift, in 1998; the collection represents all of Murphy's work as a poet through about 1996. In a contemporary review of the volume, Gerry Cambridge summarized Murphy's accomplishment: "There are outstanding poems here, including ‘Harvest of Sorrows’, ‘Sunset at the Getty’, and ‘The Quarrel’, as well as a great number of very likeable, individual, and tautly-made pieces. It would be hard to confuse Murphy with any other contemporary poet. No one else writing poetry in English sounds quite like him." As poet Dick Davis has noted, this distinctive style owes much to Murphy's use of traditional meter and rhyme, unusual among poets today: "His poems are wholly his own, and yet the voice in them lives in and through his mastery of traditional metre, which is so thorough as to seem indivisible from the poems’ sensibility and meaning." This focus on rhyme and meter is exemplified in the following excerpt from "Harvest of Sorrows":
When swift brown swallows
return to their burrows
and diamond willows
leaf in the hollows,
when barrows wallow
and brood sows farrow,
we sow the black furrows
behind our green harrows.
—excerpt from "Harvest of Sorrows"


Murphy's second collection, Very Far North, was published in 2002. Murphy has also published Set the Ploughshare Deep: A Prairie Memoir (2000), and a translation of Beowulf (2004) with his partner Alan Sullivan.

Quotes   more

Books   more

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Timothy Murphy", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
Total Books: 24
CounterImperial Churching for a Planetary Gospel Radical Discipleship for Today
Devotions
2017 - Devotions (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780911042917
ISBN-10: 0911042911
  ?

Hunter's Log
2011 - Hunter's Log (Hardcover)Paperback
ISBN-13: 9780982559796
ISBN-10: 0982559798
Genres: Literature & Fiction, Outdoors & Nature
  ?

Mortal Stakes  Faint Thunder
2011 - Mortal Stakes Faint Thunder (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780982559772
ISBN-10: 0982559771
Genre: Literature & Fiction
  ?

Law and Justice in Community
2010 - Law and Justice in Community (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780199592685
ISBN-10: 0199592683
Genres: Reference, Law
  ?

The Path to Reconciliation in Northern Ireland Educational Challenges and Opportunities
The Philosophy of Antonio Negri  Volume One Resistance in Practice
2005 - The Philosophy of Antonio Negri Volume One Resistance in Practice [v. 1] (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780745323381
ISBN-10: 0745323383
  ?

Graham Place Manor
2005 - Graham Place Manor (Paperback)Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780595334612
ISBN-10: 059533461X
Genre: Literature & Fiction
  ?

Breeders Box
2003 - Breeders Box (Paperback)Paperback
ISBN-13: 9780349112367
ISBN-10: 0349112363
Genre: Literature & Fiction
  ?

The Angry Child  Regaining Control When Your Child Is Out of Control
2002 - The Angry Child Regaining Control When Your Child Is Out of Control (Paperback)Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780609807514
ISBN-10: 060980751X
Genre: Parenting & Relationships
  • Currently 5/5 Stars.
 1

Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies
2000 - Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies [Reader's Guide Series] (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9781579581428
ISBN-10: 1579581420
Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, LGBTQ+ Books
  ?

Weddings
1999 - Weddings [Tiny Folios Mini Series] (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780789205247
ISBN-10: 0789205246
Genres: Arts & Photography, Crafts, Hobbies & Home
  ?

The Deed of Gift
1998 - The Deed of Gift (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9781885266620
ISBN-10: 1885266626
Genres: Literature & Fiction, LGBTQ+ Books
  ?

Getting Off Clean
1998 - Getting Off Clean (Paperback)Paperback, Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780312187200
ISBN-10: 0312187203
Genre: LGBTQ+ Books
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 1

The Oldest Social Science Configurations of Law and Modernity
1997 - The Oldest Social Science Configurations of Law and Modernity [Oxford Socio-Legal Studies] (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780198265597
ISBN-10: 019826559X
Genre: Law
  ?

Literary Book of Days
1995 - Literary Book of Days (Hardcover)Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780517158920
ISBN-10: 0517158922
  ?

A Literary Book Of Days
1994 - A Literary Book of Days (Hardcover)Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780517594322
ISBN-10: 0517594323
Genre: Stationery, Journals & Notebooks
  ?

Beowulf
Beowulf (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780321107206
ISBN-10: 0321107209
Genre: Literature & Fiction
  • Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
 2

Very Far North
Very Far North (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9781904130017
ISBN-10: 1904130011
Genre: Literature & Fiction
  ?