Robert J. Tiess
@robertjtiess.bsky.social
810 followers 910 following 630 posts
Published poet/author/writer Poetry/nature/library/education advocate Musician artist philosopher Career in libraries Married to Sandra Sprague Books: + Gracious Nature + May We Learn from the Earth + The Humbling & Other Poems robertjtiess.wordpress.com
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robertjtiess.bsky.social
Introducing myself...

Hi! My name is Robert.

I'm a poet living in New York with my wife, Sandra.

I love writing primarily about #nature and life, and I've been penning poems since the 1980s.

You can learn more about me, my #poetry, and my #books at RobertJTiess.net

#poets #writers #authors
robertjtiess.bsky.social
You're most welcome, Marcía!

I'm grateful you revitalize the poetry and writing feeds with your thoughtful works.

I try to do my part, too, even as I sometimes wonder if anyone sees my posts.

Best wishes and much inspiration to you, Marcía!
robertjtiess.bsky.social
Hi, Marcía!

I don't get time to comment on posts, but I've been meaning for a while to stop by and say how nice it is to read your responses to these various daily poetry prompts.

I appreciate your efforts!

I try to participate when I can, but I admire your devotion.

Keep up the wonderful work!🌞
robertjtiess.bsky.social
I've hit that wall a few times.

If I start to feel like that, I try to get outside, see the trees, watch clouds--basically to stand there, not think, just breathe.

Nature can be rejuvenating and mind-clearing to me, and that clarity can help me continue my writing.

Wishing you much inspiration!
robertjtiess.bsky.social
In 2002, I tried to launch the OpenLit Movement.

It urged expressive liberty, interpretive freedom, critical openness.

Total literary democracy.

It went nowhere, but it had some good ideas.🙂

The WayBack Machine link if you're curious
web.archive.org/web/20021004...

#poetry #literature #writing
OpenLit - An Introduction to the Open Literature Movement
web.archive.org
robertjtiess.bsky.social
Here's something I often tell poets asking me how they might refine their work:

* READ YOUR POEMS OUT LOUD. *

Or ask someone to read them aloud.

It can be a revelation. Try it!

Once I started to do that regularly, I wanted more meter and musicality in my poems.

#poetry #poets #writing #reading
Reposted by Robert J. Tiess
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My #poem "The Infinite Anthology"

on #storytelling, mythic traditions, #odysseys beyond metaphors...

Text flows down 1st column up to the 2nd.

ALT text

+text link: allpoetry.com/poem/1851475...

#poetry #poems #stories #myths #mythology
#poetrycommunity #poetrylovers #journeys
#unity #literature
THE TITLE:
The Infinite Anthology

THE POEM:
Our stories launched before we've learned
to murmur something meaningful,
and they'll cruise on although we've ceased,
as authors or their characters
or even as an audience
acknowledging, remembering,
assembling mythologies,
our globe of interwoven tales,
heroic quests, odd voyages
from varied distant origins
and plots we cannot hope to scope
entirely while we dream, too,
through endings really episodes
or prefaces of other works
recorded independently
(though always most connectedly)
as breathing fictions, classic facts
communicated everywhere
through syllables, traditions, eyes
contributing perspectives to
this infinite anthology
that finds and binds and carries worlds
with us, our lost and dying lore,
old symbols, stanzas, metaphors,
then every embryonic phrase
that lives to gift an unborn ear
some proverb, sign, or parable
to whisper into memory
whatever bears repeating when
someone forgets these narratives
exist above demand, delay,
abridgment, much less censorship,
because they shall be free to speak
the worst or sweetest human times,
and choices made, unmade, reshaped,
biography's mixed chronicles
of quotes and footnotes linking all
with figures, actions, passages,
strange images, thick indexes
foreshadowing a future page
that seems, at last, beyond the past,
yet faintly echoes in its text
such running loves of poetry
of quarrying experience,
the marble of its mysteries,
and literary strata truths
still layering atop first words,
the pending lessons of the dead,
their spirits in our histories
which haunt behind our walling verse
in hopes of goading consciousness
of wisdoms unsaid, not yet read,
and epics left to send ahead,
beyond romances, monsters, grails,
now wind excites this silent sea,
revives our crafts of many sails,
and dares us toward discovering
where sagas reach reality.

END OF POEM

Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
robertjtiess.bsky.social
6/6

Well, I hope you enjoyed this stream of In Medias Res posts.

I think it's fun but important to consider these kinds of things.

Some links for more about IMR & Zeigeist:

www.britannica.com/art/in-media...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medi...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist

#literature #poetry
In medias res - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
robertjtiess.bsky.social
5/6

No human, much less any writing, exists in a "perfect vacuum" apart from reality

--or simply as "an island," as metaphysical poet John Donne said.

Each idea, feeling, word exists "in the midst" of larger nested contexts.

For me, In Medias Res can characterize ALL our #literature and #poetry.
robertjtiess.bsky.social
4/6

Our writings also relate with personal experiences, expressions, and our socioeconomic contexts and times.

When we write, we contemplate moments, specific emotions or episodes, and we may even voice and preserve "zeitgeist" (the "spirit" of our day).

So many contexts!

#literature #poetry
robertjtiess.bsky.social
3/6

Nonfiction is also part of larger stories already in progress:

personal essays, bios, memoirs, histories...

Another example I used in the past is Earth:

our planet is full of tiny stories in larger contexts:

psychological, social, geological, ecological, cosmological...

#literature #poetry
robertjtiess.bsky.social
2/6

I believe "in medias res" may describe all written works.

Poems, micro to epic, explore ideas, feelings, etc. from various moments and views of larger experiences and emotional contexts.

Classic haiku often relates natural instants in seasonal contexts (look up "kigo").

#literature #poetry
robertjtiess.bsky.social
1/6

"In medias res" is Latin for "in the middle [or 'midst'] of things."

It's often used to describe stories/epics dropping audiences at once into situations.

Two examples:

+Homer's Iliad set during the Trojan War

+Original Trilogy Episode *IV* Star Wars: the opening chase

#literature #poetry
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My poem "To a Tired Thespian"

on contemplating the drama and more
within the theater of another mind.

I hope you find it interesting.

ALT text in image
+ poem link: allpoetry.com/poem/1868837...

#poetry #poems #poetrycommunity #drama #stage #acting #plays #psychology #illusions #fantasy #reality
THE TITLE OF THE POEM:
To a Tired Thespian

THE POEM:

Leaning over the mezzanine
inside your classically theatrical mind,
I'm watching threadbare curtains merge and part
as notions saunter out of dimmer wings
toward hotter wattage lights.

Against impressively elaborate backdrops
rolled hastily onto the stage (by clumsy hands
preferring mostly to remain unknown),
I'm following your central character,
your "thief of scenes" now robbed of time.

Another costume propped with pomp?
Do you hope to distract us from
the lifeless lines?  The marks you miss?
What happened to that masterful delivery?
Your authentic career of inauthenticity?

Your audience is mostly memories,
but did they sigh or cry tonight?
You used to love to make them love you, love.
But was that love?  We need to feel the realer.
Break the fourth wall!  Let's be done with plays.

THE END OF THE POEM

Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My #haiku for #DailyHaikuPrompt
#yellow #leaves theme
___________________________________

green leaves yellowing;
orange and red coming soon:
autumn's slow parade

___________________________________
#poetry #poem © me 2025
#autumn #fall #trees #seasons
@dailyhaikuprompt.mastodon.world.ap.brid.gy
robertjtiess.bsky.social
I never saw this get posted.

Also, I refuse to believe there are no Jane Goodall fans on BlueSky.

This was my tribute to Jane Goodall, a poem I started years back to celebrate her life.

When she passed, I had to update and finish it:

bsky.app/profile/robe...

#poetry #poems #janegoodall #nature
robertjtiess.bsky.social
1/2

My poem in praise of Jane Goodall.

I started it long ago and was moved to finish it when I heard she passed away.

I hope this honors her amazing life.

Please feel free to share.💙

ALT text
+link allpoetry.com/poem/1868244...

#poetry #nature #janegoodall #ecology
#earth #conservation
THE TITLE OF THE POEM:
For Jane Goodall (1934-2025)

THE POEM:

To you, they weren't subjects to be numbered,
tagged and logged, footnoted, left behind;
you gave them names, acknowledged characters,
allowed for souls to glow behind those eyes
so you could witness stories deeper than
their primal traits (what we dismissed as "wildlife").

First chimpanzees, then more like family,
they'd screech and scatter until trust could come
of calm encounters, tenderness, good company,
and then the unexpected empathy
beginning with the humble gift of hands
which gestured friendship, mercy, warmth, regard.

With instincts science cannot prime alone,
and love above control's conditioning,
you recognized the tools and bonds they forged
—the leaders, rivals, mothers—and their roles,
emotions, language, warfare, rituals
(things we claimed as purely human truths).

You saw more than these similarities:
you championed the grand connectedness,
showed nature's here, through shoots and roots of Earth
—and us—to be observed, conserved, deserved.
Benevolence becomes your legacy.
May we inherit your humanity.

THE END OF THE POEM.

Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
robertjtiess.bsky.social
1/2

My poem in praise of Jane Goodall.

I started it long ago and was moved to finish it when I heard she passed away.

I hope this honors her amazing life.

Please feel free to share.💙

ALT text
+link allpoetry.com/poem/1868244...

#poetry #nature #janegoodall #ecology
#earth #conservation
THE TITLE OF THE POEM:
For Jane Goodall (1934-2025)

THE POEM:

To you, they weren't subjects to be numbered,
tagged and logged, footnoted, left behind;
you gave them names, acknowledged characters,
allowed for souls to glow behind those eyes
so you could witness stories deeper than
their primal traits (what we dismissed as "wildlife").

First chimpanzees, then more like family,
they'd screech and scatter until trust could come
of calm encounters, tenderness, good company,
and then the unexpected empathy
beginning with the humble gift of hands
which gestured friendship, mercy, warmth, regard.

With instincts science cannot prime alone,
and love above control's conditioning,
you recognized the tools and bonds they forged
—the leaders, rivals, mothers—and their roles,
emotions, language, warfare, rituals
(things we claimed as purely human truths).

You saw more than these similarities:
you championed the grand connectedness,
showed nature's here, through shoots and roots of Earth
—and us—to be observed, conserved, deserved.
Benevolence becomes your legacy.
May we inherit your humanity.

THE END OF THE POEM.

Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My #haiku for #DailyHaikuPrompt
#high #tide #shoots
__________________________________

high tide not so high:
hillside bamboo shoots prevail
beyond the sea's reach

__________________________________
#poetry #poem © me 2025
#nature #ocean #waves #growth

@dailyhaikuprompt.mastodon.world.ap.brid.gy
robertjtiess.bsky.social
4/4

Part four of my poem "The Problem Plays"

ALT text in image

+ poem text link:
allpoetry.com/poem/1867694...

#poetry #poems #plays #drama #metaphors
The Problem Plays
___________________________________________________________
 
THE EPILOGUE OF EPILOGUES
  
Who lives to give this epilogue?
Which group?  Which individual?
Antagonists?  Protagonist?
Who are you?  What they've made of you?
Has post-dramatic irony
revealed we were players played?
Does darkness presage prophecy?
Were morals grounded, found, or drowned
in frowns and clowning spectacles?
Who now attends our epilogue?
The splintering of discontent?
Is that a dagger?  Horse?  A rose?
Perhaps old lines might lie to us.
Where shadows seem suspended, is
a vision mending ends undone?
Perhaps our play was not the thing?
Shall clapping shatter magic's spell
and free grief from dead theaters?
I ask not for an age, but time.
Though arrows narrow mystery,
we wake for one more chance to dream.
This is the prologue:  history.
"To be" is never questioned here.
_____________________________________________________
Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
robertjtiess.bsky.social
3/4

Part three of my poem "The Problem Plays"

ALT text in image

+ poem text link:
allpoetry.com/poem/1867694...

#poetry #poems #plays #drama #metaphors
The Problem Plays
___________________________________________________________
 
ACT THREE
 
Enter SOMEONE, EVERYONE,
or NOBODY if this is IT.
 
Performer, Chorus, Audience,
this is the drama actions wrote,
a prequel to tomorrow's farce,
the sum of rushed soliloquies
hot commentary, pause, applause,
rehearsals, choreography,
lost costumes, histrionics, masks,
directions, backdrops, dialogues,
cold cause of flaws, of fates reversed,
of curtains, spotlights, orchestras,
props setting settings in a mind
extending credibility
to situations, twisted plots,
a timely entrance, exits left,
each tragedy and comedy
adapting actualities
with manners, errors, the absurd
to magnify humanity
or lampoon inhumanities.
 
_____________________________________________________
Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
robertjtiess.bsky.social
2/4

Part two of my poem "The Problem Plays"

"Problem Play" was the theme.

What's a problem play?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem...

The poem's title also plays on the phrase Problem Play (play as a verb).

ALT text
+ poem link:
allpoetry.com/poem/1867694...

#poetry #poems #plays #drama #metaphors
The Problem Plays
___________________________________________________________

ACT TWO

Enter, INDIVIDUAL,
in the NEXT UNSETTLING.

In this act, you are brought between
the culmination of your youth
and anything achievable
until you meet Society,
greet groups and others clustering,
and they weigh on your works with words
of repetitious pressuring,
arranged persuasions of the day,
then aim to make you one of them
and banish dazzling character
or castigate the outlier
who moves outside designing eyes
to see beyond predestiny
and modes of mediocrity.




_____________________________________________________
Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
robertjtiess.bsky.social
1/4

Part one of my poem "The Problem Plays"

I entered it a Late Night Poets contest.

The poem's arranged in 3 acts + an epilogue.

Some plays on Shakespearean references are included.

Hope you enjoy it.

ALT text
+ poem link allpoetry.com/poem/1867694...

#poetry #poems #plays #drama #metaphors
The Problem Plays
___________________________________________________________
 

ACT ONE

Enter, INDIVIDUAL,
from WHAT COULD BE
to PRESENTLY.

In the first act, you are born,
and there’s brief bursting of applause
when your forehead and arms appear,
and then the dubbing of a name
decided many months ago,
when you, your brain, were gaining shape
shown floating in an oval womb,
your microcosm, all you knew,
gestating most expectedly,
until you left the Nebulous
and found yourself beneath staged lights
inside this theater of life.

_____________________________________________________
Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
robertjtiess.bsky.social
As poets, our liberty (and arguably our duty) to experiment with expression lets us approach common things with uniqueness.

Our individual "word choices" are vital:
each decision draws from our personalities.

All that nurtures originality and keeps poetry fresh.

#poetry #poets #writing #education
robertjtiess.bsky.social
Among the many reasons I've stuck with poetry since the 80s is that it repeatedly offers me opportunities to grow.

Through reading and writing poetry, I have so many chances to discover, emote, perceive, and express more.

My poems teach me as I go and look back at them.

#poetry #poets #education