Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 6,000,000 visitors since 2014 and over 9,000 archived posts.
Michael Simms: Strangers at the Door | Robert Gibb, Laure-Anne Bosselaar and Jose Padua
I’ve always loved poetry that has a clear voice, a strong reliance on craft, and a sense that a person is speaking about ideas or incidents that are of utmost importance to him or her, and I’ve always disliked poems that are merely word games, or that don’t seem authentic. The sound of the poem is the most important quality, and I often say lines out loud in order to hear the music. One of my favorite poems, for example, is Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Petrarchan sonnet What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why. However, I have to admit that part of what fascinates me about Millay’s work is that through luck, talent and self-promotion she was able to become one of the best-known authors of her time. Although I’ve served as a literary editor and publisher for many years, trying to make unknown poets known, the conundrum of how and why a few poets reach national prominence while others, though highly talented, fail to gain the attention of the public, has long confounded me. So, here I want to call attention to three mature poets who have done extraordinary work, but have not, in my opinion, received the attention they deserve, and in the process explore different ways one can be an “outsider” in the poetry field… (click here to continue reading the essay in Plume Poetry)
Michael Simms is the founding editor of Autumn House Press (1998-2016) and Vox Populi (2014-present). His recent books include the poetry collection Strange Meadowlark (Ragged Sky, 2023) and the fantasy novel The Green Mage (Madville, 2023). In 2014, the State Legislature of Pennsylvania awarded Simms a Certificate of Recognition for his service to the arts.
Discover more from Vox Populi
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
OK Michael: I’ve wakened for a Tums and bathroom visit and it’s 1AM Sunday morning, as I decided to stir this elixir of inquiry, exposition and proposal into my late middle-aged nightjar of insomnia.
I love who you love, and have met them all through you. I agree, I agree, I agree—[Agree times three!] but then further by four and six and seventeen… We circulate in a very populous field of great souls! I could make a fond case (so could you) for another three right now, and perhaps we both should. It is a sadness as much as a joy of the Arts there are so many of us and we are such a numerous creature in the horizons of the human psyche (the way flowers and trees, animals and native things—(all we’ve displaced and killed) used to be) and thank God for our “Arts” or we’d have nothing at all to recommend us to any universe.
But within this argument or discussion which is so true and full of merit is another even longer and complicated examination of “worthiness” among the “fully knowns” who, how, and what we neglect and conversely choose to give our beloved attention to.
I despise, for instance, that I haven’t looked at Hayden for a year and a half, just took Sylvia down off the shelf and put her (“The Colossus”) under my arm (because Carl Phillips just spoke of it in a book of his I just bought because I had no idea who he is til just now…) Who else already dear to my heart and long neglected? Wendell? Gary?
Yet this as you’ve elucidated, is the moment for Alice Friman, Cathy Smith Bowers, Rick Campbell, Brian Turner, even another world within poetry no one will know about, “Pastoralists” (they fly under the banner Cowboy Poets”) I met at Elko: Linda Hussa, John Dofflemyer, Wallace McCrae, Paul Zarzyski, Vess Quinlan, and Linda Hasselstrom (how all these figures have impacted and elevated this world of words into the poetry wind as beautifully and significantly as any—all within micro climates and ultimately world-sized weathers of human thought.
So much else to say, but this is a wonderful thing you’ve put forth and I so agree with it and elevate both the joy and sadness of it all in my heart. We both know its always been for the few, and its own reward.
—Sean
LikeLiked by 2 people
What a lovely manifesto and celebration, Sean. Thank you!
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is as beautiful a wise as a splendid sunny spring day, the same air, sweetness and heart.
Thanks a lot
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Marina! What a lovely thing to say!
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks so much, Michael!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Danny, for making a place for this essay in the splendid magazine PLUME. Many of my favorite poets publish there. It is an honor to have my work beside theirs.
LikeLiked by 2 people
What a thoughtful and delightful and rich essay. I have found and loved these poets through you. Michael, and my morning routine of the old woman I never planned to be revolves around opening Vox Populi while still in bed, imbibing, often sighing, perhaps scribbling a response before I rise snd turn to morning meditation and another day.
LikeLiked by 2 people
What a lovely thing to say, Barbara. Thank you!
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for giving Gibb some much needed and well-deserved attention. His mentorship has meant a lot to me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for pointing this out, Fred. Robert has mentored other younger men as well.
M. Michael Simms Publisher/Vox Populi Founder/Autumn House Press Author/Nightjar (poems) Author/American Ash (poems) Author/Bicycles of the Gods: A Divine Comedy (novel) Author/The Green Mage (novel) https://madvillepublishing.com/product/green-mage/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Outstanding! Thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Carrie!
>
LikeLike