Michael Simms: Dear Vox Populi subscribers
The next VP posts will go live on Tuesday, December 14, with a meditative poem about light and dark by Baron Wormser and a passionate essay about violence against women by Sarah Lahm. You don’t want to miss the work of these two gifted writers.
Michael Simms: What it wasn’t
It wasn’t bigger than a breadbox.
It wasn’t smooth as glass.
It didn’t smell good or bad
Or have any taste whatsoever.
Michael Simms: Mac
One of my first mentors was Mac McInerny, an old farmer who hired me when I was 16 to work in his greenhouse and to do handyman repairs for his friends. We drove around town in his beat-up pickup truck delivering gravel and lumber, fixing roofs and planting trees.
Michael Simms: The Door
The first time I saw him
he was a beautiful Irish boy,
an extra in a Synge play…
Virtual Book Launch! “Nightjar” by Michael Simms, w/ Gerry LaFemina, Gail Langstroth, and Sharon Fagan McDermott — Today!
Poet and classical scholar Rachel Hadas notes that the poems “recall the darkly vatic voice of Brecht’s late lyrics. Yet, Simms always sounds like himself: plainspoken, intimate, vulnerable, courageous.”
Michael Simms: Compost
fine white strands
of mycelium reach
into the cells of the woody stalk
and hard husk of sunflower
Michael Simms: Tree of Life
God, like a lazy cop,
Never seems to be around
When you need Him
Michael Simms: Meconium
it is sacred, the way
soil clinging to the seed
of a new shoot
pushing out of the earth
is sacred
Michael Simms: The Seafarer
I can sing the song if you like,
Go on about the going, the work,
The desperate unendurable days….
Wangechi Mutu: A Necessary Madness
“Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body.”
Michael Simms: Writing Prompt #7 | Jumping into the Mud
Here’s an exercise which I call Jumping into the Mud although it’s sometimes called by the more prosaic name automatic writing. The exercise helps to loosen my imagination, and sometimes a decent poem results as well.
Video: Michael Simms reads five poems of joy and acceptance
Imagine being so in love
The mistakes you make
Keep you on the ground
Imperfect and happy
Michael Simms: A Conversation with Poet Robert Gibb
‘Having started out as a painter I’ve never lost the sense that I’m working on something that has a tangible existence, separate from my own, and that what matters most isn’t content but the expression of it.’
Michael Simms: Heart of Glass
In Herzog’s great visual opera
The hero stands on a cliff
Above a valley where a river
Of molten glass carries
Light to the sea
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