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Tim Stafford’s work lives in the buffer zone between Chicago and the American Dream — far from the suburbs with white picket fences and country clubs but still too far to be of the city proper. Like a carefully curated mixtape, Stafford’s work navigates the side streets and highways in between, linking those worlds in an effort to create his own.
“Blunt, hilarious, and heartfelt, Tim Stafford's debut collection is a knock-out—a sweet, sober, and hard-won lesson on staying authentic.”
—Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, author of Dr. Mutter’s Marvels
“This collection riots with narrative and coming of age in a laugh and music-filled tour of Chicago.”
—Peter Kahn, author of Little Kings
“Tim Stafford’s poems hit you like a punch in the arm from a best friend, simultaneously violent and funny.”
—Joaquín Zihuatanejo, author of Arsonist
“While I was never a young punk growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, reading Tim Stafford’s Patron Saint brought many smiles to my face, returning me to the sweetness of the open-heartedness of it all, of what the world can offer us, small as we may have been.”
—Anis Mojgani, Oregon Poet Laureate
Tim Stafford is a public school teacher, poet, and storyteller from Lyons, IL. He is the editor of the Learn Then Burn anthology series.