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.
Tim Stafford is a public school teacher, poet, and storyteller from Lyons, IL. He is the editor of the Learn Then Burn anthology series.
Publication date: December 14, 2021
“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
Join a panel of poets to celebrate the release of Tim Staffford's new chapbook The Patron Saint of Making Curfew!
