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Our first reader tonight
is Jim Simmerman,

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author of several collections
of poetry, including Home,

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Once Out of Nature, Moon, Go
Away, I Don't Love You No More,

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Kingdom Come, and the
forthcoming American Children.

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Recipient of fellowships
from the Arizona Commission

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on the Arts, Bread Loaf and Port
Townsend Writers Conferences,

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Fine Arts Work Center,
Hawthornden Castle

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International
Retreat for Writers,

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and the National
Endowment for the Arts,

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Simmerman is currently
Regents Professor of English

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at Northern Arizona University.

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Simmerman's poems launch from
every conceivable foundation

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of poetic technique,
fly through a variety

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of atmospheric voices,
poet, persona, lyric,

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and hold in an
orbit of tone that

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is both humorous and tender.

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Simmerman's poetic drive seems
to come from an obsession

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to get at what needs to be
said through whatever mode

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necessary to better
understand the self.

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In his forthcoming
book, American Children,

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the poet comes to the
fore and, as in other

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of Simmerman's books,
renames the world

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to get a better grip
on its elusiveness.

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As is shown from an excerpt
taken from the poem "Road

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Music," there could
be a car and there

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could be an elephant's
graveyard of cars.

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And you could go there any night
with a hammer and a crowbar

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and try to make them sing.

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Or try to make a
poem about a car,

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and you could revise the poem.

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Here the rhythms and turns of
thought make our mind sing.

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And what better way
to re-understand

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our world, our
graveyard of cars,

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than through the poet's song.

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Please help me
welcome Jim Simmerman.