Now

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 is the mind’s astronomer. 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, Author Poets of the Bible: from Solomon to John of Revelation Fred Cody Life 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 offerscompelling 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 Self-Portrait with Dogwood "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 suffused in deep personal disappointment to wrest from it the brilliant shards of universal longing—and ghostly light. "With each shift," he writes, "what looks like a common life, fractured and sad, becomes an altarpiece of infinite regress... fully manifest in possibility." To accomplish this Houdini act on an altogether ordinary life (though perhaps one "more honored in the breach than in the observance") requires daring, objectivity, and a finely honed and totally unsentimental mastery of his poetic craft. In this brilliant debut (or better, reboot), Tom Simmons returns after a long absence from the writing scene to demonstrate that his early promise has indeed borne fruit. Bright, subtle, experimental, and still yearning for that unifying wholeness beneath all the random fragments, he has emerged as one of our quintessential postmodern troubadours." Cynthia Bourgeault – The Wisdom Way of Knowing The Heart of Centering Prayer – Love Is Stronger than Death