Houston:
Press Release – SAINT JULIAN PRESS proudly presents a new
collection of poems by Thomas Simmons, which is available through fine book
distributors and retailers.
Praise for NOW
“The abundance
of Tom Simmons’ imagination is matched by his tireless intellectual curiosity.
A copious, ardent, richly musical book of poetry.”
Robert Pinsky
|
“Thomas Simmons
is a poet of astonishing lines that stun the page with informed candor. He has
many voices and forms, all consistent with a learned poet who looks and photos
world events and passion historically in ancient, modern, and experimental
passages. He gazes at eternal heavens fallen yet strolling on earth. I expect
many new word constellations will be carrying his signature. His pen is as
sharp as his eye.” Willis
Barnstone Poets of the
Bible: from Solomon to John of Revelation Fred Cody
Lifetime Achievement Award “Thomas Simmons
possesses an uncanny ability to weave together in his poems elements of the
past, present, and future, refracted through details that are at once quotidian
and eternal. Now offers compelling testimony about a complicated moment
in history, in the form of one man's searing indictment of the mistakes, his
own and others’, that have defined his singular time on earth. This book will
endure.” Christopher
Merrill “There are two
ways to transmute personal suffering: one is through spiritual practice; the
other is through art. Tom Simmons wholeheartedly chooses the latter route. In
this long-awaited new collection, he dives down the rabbit hole of a life to
wrest from it the brilliant shards of universal longing. Bright, subtle,
experimental, and still yearning for that unifying wholeness, he has emerged as
one of our quintessential postmodern troubadours.” Cynthia Bourgeault – The Wisdom Way of Knowing |
Thomas Simmons served
as an associate professor for the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at
MIT, and for over two decades in the Department of English at the University of
Iowa. He was a doctoral student in English at the University of California,
Berkeley, a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative
Writing at Stanford, and a Stanford University undergraduate. He is the author
of seven previous books; one, The Unseen Shore:
Memories of a Christi- an Science Childhood, Beacon Press, 1991, which may
have caused some offense in Boston. He presently resides in either Grinnell,
Iowa, or on a boat on Lake Michigan out of Chicago.
ABOUT THE ARTIST –– ALIKI BARNSTONE is a poet, translator, critic,
editor, and visual artist. Her visual art has appeared in New Letters and
Tiferet. She is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Dwelling
(Sheep Meadow, 2016), Bright Body (White Pine, 2011) and Dear
God, Dear Dr. Heartbreak: New and Selected Poems (Sheep Meadow, 2009). She
is the translator of The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy:
A New Translation (W. W. Norton, 2006). She earned her B.A. from Brown
University and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she
studied with Robert Pinsky. At present she serves as
Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Missouri and
Poet Laureate of the State of Missouri.
To learn more, please go to http://www.alikibarnstone.com.
A Reading of three poems from NOW by Thomas Simmons
EVERYWHERE
|
I wanted to begin to ask what it means to stop-- just that. That stillness. These words receding even now, shadows on the water, the water of the pond stiller and stiller until the one real is stillness, no detail at all, that pure everywhere. |
SILENT REVEL
|
The deep night owl beyond your vision in sleep Is my mastery of silent revel, my fulfilled promise To you, no longer stranger. Hear in that soft Voice you do not know the warranty of trust, Your promise, though unfulfilled before, also Made good. I do not control the image In your head, but neither is it your image– Only an assurance to be acted on, mine given And yours foreseen as night shades into Dawn, as the light rises, your eyes open to The partial from which you turned away, and I, fully Satisfied, fly to the high bough of my expectancy. |
THE OFFERS
|
For almost a year, no dreams at all, or none remembered. Then you began to manifest as someone not there, someone Other people talked about—and it was after; I needed kin Or comfort. A few stood by, whispering, no help at hand. Then the vignettes, slo-mo: the low hills of the park. The tree that fell beside us. The caterpillar on your wrist. You, and that look—that one—and always wordless, Despite your gifts, riveted, waiting for me to speak. You knew everything I would say. From brief sleep I snap awake Wounded and baffled. Why this? That night we read together In the darkened auditorium, your voice was thin yet die-cast, Unmistakable. Now, desperate, as with thirst to slake, I fear rest. You, there—your face so close to mine, you hover In that moment just before—why now, when all seems lost? |
POET’S PAGE
More poems and recordings from NOW by Thomas Simmons from Interconnections.
Available
soon through ~ IndieBound
~ Ingram
Content Group ~ Amazon ~ Barnes
& Noble ~ Fine Book Distributors &
Retailers
NOW by Thommas
Simmons * ISBN-13: 978-0-9986404-0-2
*
ISBN 10: 0-9986404-0-9
Saint Julian
Press, Inc. * 2053 Cortlandt, Suite 200 * Houston, TX 77008 * Ron
Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
Phone: 281-734-8721 * Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * www.saintjulianpress.com
|
Press Release with Photo
|
| ||
SAINT JULIAN PRESS, INC. © 2022
|
|
|
|
Web Hosting by IPOWER
|
|
|
As an Amazon Associate — Saint Julian Press, Inc. may earn funds from any qualifying purchases.
This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.