Imperfections of Beauty

By T.C. Monk

This thought-provoking collection of poems asks big questions of readers. T.C. Monk grapples with universal questions regarding how we as individuals make meaning and what matters to us. What makes Monk's poetry stand out from the works of other incarcerated writers is his ability to transcend the very concrete constraints of his life and not dwell in the past. Like flowers blooming through cracked sidewalks, his poetry is evidence of how beauty, freedom, and light can emerge from the harsh environment of containment, restraint, and unnatural shadows. Assembled over a more than 20-year period, the collection is an intellectual and emotional cartography of one man's search for emotional wisdom, truth, and peace.

His poetry is deliberate; the words and images are chosen. Monk's poems are not for those who are easily intimidated or want to read poetry without effort. They are not cerebral poems, nor are they "a spontaneous eruption of powerful feelings," nor lines of rhymes as an end in itself, nor a wild landscape of words and letters thrown haphazardly into the wind to land and sprout as they would, independent of one another. The poems are built with care. They are a scaffold upon which Monk builds a spiritual lighthouse, a place to muse, imagine, create, conject, and conjure incantations and songs, as well as an effort to explore and defy dimensions of time, space, and spirit. In doing so, he lays bare not only the shadow and light of his soul but the essential human spirit that binds us all. They teach us something about our shared humanity, that what we love, fear, hate, and desire are inextricably and intimately related. In their relative proximity, these emotional dimensions of our lives reveal our fragility even as they are testimony to human resilience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T.C. Monk
• Release date: May 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9781685157692

T.C. Monk

T.C. Monk is an eccentric soul, one of those people you want to seek out if you are searching for more than what's on the surface. His thoughts and views on the essence of life and its interconnectivity are not new, but the colorful manner in which he presents them in his writings are. All his talents are self-taught, honed during his lengthy incarceration. He believes that going to prison not only saved his life, but gave him the opportunity to create something out of a broken existence. His prior life in the free world fell short of what his mind needed, this being excitement, danger, the thrill of the chase, something that would push the threshold of the boundaries of propriety.Being in prison did not teach him anything of value. The system is not built for teaching, but simply to warehouse human beings. But the time inside gave him the opportunity to either use it to create something out of a nothing life or to continue as others in prison do and just let themselves waste away, never leaving a positive mark on the world.T.C. Monk has spent his time in prison educating himself in the fields of poetry, prose, ink and pencil art, history, language, philosophy, psychology, and theology, as well as family and personal relationship interaction. Courtesy, honesty, fidelity, trust, respect, honor, patience, and sacrifice are all traits he has fought to instill in himself, in hopes of not only making something out of a previously wasted life, but to prove that with dedication, discipline, and determination, anyone can change their life for the better. All they need do is try.T.C. Monk's wish in writing this book is to give back a little of the grace the world saw fit to bestow upon a broke soul. He once was lost, but now he's found.

Book preview

Imperfections of Beauty, 2018

We conjure memories into the light,

from the dark where they lay dreaming,

a sweet disorder inside the mind,

where life summons its subtle meaning.

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Time is a measure of conscious thought,

a marker to expose the chaotic mind,

memories stipple its meandering path,

like scattered breadcrumbs left behind.

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The boundary of morrow can never confine us

its distance is but a singular measure,

one that reveals the breadth of life,

and tests the distance of its tether.

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To capture lightning in a bottle,

is but to seize a moment in time,

could it be its essence we