American Ash - by Michael SIMMs (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br><p>A collection of poems traces one man's evolution to maturity and acceptance. The poems use a broad diction that includes the slang of the streets and the tender language of love, as well as concepts of history, politics and science.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>Beginning in the dirty realism of a working-class neighborhood and the misery of addicts, the collection traces one man's raw, funny and poignant evolution to maturity and acceptance. The poems range widely in style and use a broad diction that includes the slang of the streets and the tender language of love, as well as concepts of history, politics and science, to create a riff on what it is to be alive in a time which may very well be "the end of civilization as we know it." Simms weaves highly personal stories about his sister's suicide, his own struggle with addiction, and the joy of finding love and a spiritual path against a background of the desperate politics of our time: perpetual war, the decay of urban life, and the encroaching chaos caused by our violation of nature. Populated by addicts, alcoholics, policemen, soldiers, veterans, carpenters, Peace Corps volunteers, African villagers, children, orphans, scientists, dogs, teachers, leftist nuns, refugees, torturers and saints, the poems evoke the primal and the sublime, the everyday and the metaphysical. In the world revealed in this collection, Gracie Allen, Richard Feynman and Moondog show us the path to enlightenment. "Being ordinary," the poet says, "makes you a hero."</p><p>At times playful and other times dead serious, Simms pushes the limits of what a book of poetry can do. With linguistic dexterity, he captures the syncopated rhythms of American speech recording one man's journey from childhood abuse and addiction to a spiritually enlightened vision of life in all its absurd complexity. With a compassionate eye for the troubled and the ridiculous, Simms speaks to the deepest longings and strangest predilections of the human experience. Intense yet forgiving, this is a tough, unrelenting voice touched by grace.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><p>These poems have cells, and ribosomes, they have people and places, and trees, and ant beds, hearts, and lungs, and coffee, and death. They have woodpeckers, nations, and radiant Tuesdays, they have weeds, and hands, and memory. They speak to what has been, to possibility, to connection, and to a deep affection for humanity, imagination, and life.</p><p>-Alexandra Umlas, Cultural Weekly</em></p><p><br></p><p></em>In a Beat-like voice that's spontaneous, raw, and irrepressible, Michael Simms writes with the courage of a witness and the wisdom of a survivor. These poems leap, lament, pierce, transcend, delve, witness, praise, and testify to the curative power of poetry.</p><p>-Chard deNiord, author of <em>In My Unknowing</em></p><p> </p><p>The work in <em>American Ash</em> presses us into terror, fury, forgiveness, almost in the same breath. The ability to inhabit the self so fully, to transmit this delicate, difficult knowledge of our holy imperfections-this is a rare and tender skill. The poems wrestle with ugliness and anger; they denounce cruelty; they are frightened and remorseful; and yet they rise, again and again, to simple joy.</p><p>-Dawn Potter, author of <em>Same Old Story</em></p><p> </p><p>Simms embraces a full humanity, writing what James Wright called "the poetry of a grown man" in a language that has fully absorbed the American poetic tradition from Whitman to Vallejo to Wright to Rich. What I admire most is Simms's truthfulness, his unflinching journey through life, wounded but healed. This poet has "looked/into the darkness/and survived."</p><p>-Philip Terman, author of <em>Our Portion</em></p><p> </p><p>Simms understands that any truth that's worthy of the name can be both brutal and beautiful. Indeed, there's a beauty here that can bring you to the edge of being too much to bear; but, perhaps more importantly, there's also a kindness powerful enough to cast grand shadows over the roughest of days.</p><p>-Jose Padua, author of <em>A Short History of Monsters</em></p><br>
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