Built of All I Shape and Name

by Jessica Genia Simon

With beauty, love, and authenticity, Jessica Genia Simon writes about the multi-generational trauma of Holocaust survivors, the unrelenting yearning to cradle the heart of a mother and a baby, and other challenges that define her. And yet, her deeply-felt poems brim with hope and wonder. Simon’s connection to the natural word, her sensuous musings about honeysuckle nectar, full-throated daffodils, and crooning robins, ground and uplift us at the same time. I’ll continue to re-read Simon’s work, because her poetry implores us to shape and name what matters most in our lives and beyond.
—Michelle Brafman, author of Washing the Dead and Swimming with Ghosts
In Built of All I Shape and Name, Jessica Simon writes powerfully and without self-pity about trying to understand her mother. Simon also writes honestly about her miscarriages. She observes and empathizes with birds and trees and gives trees a voice. These poems will intrigue, move, and perhaps enlighten the reader.
—Marge Piercy, poet, novelist, memoirist
Jessica Genia Simon is a poet navigating the fierce terrain of womanhood and loss. The poems shift from crocuses and maple trees to theatrical interior soliloquies with blossoming epiphanies. Simon's poems are the politically astute observations of both a daughter and a global citizen. By rooting herself in lineage and being uprooted by both visible and invisible losses, Simon guides us through the difficult and lyrical journey with humility and wisdom.
—Regie Cabico, Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam Champion, three-time National Poetry Slam Finalist
Jessica Simon’s tender and intimate new collection is aptly entitled Built of All I Shape and Name. In her book, she explores the challenges presented by life’s cycle of birth, love, and death. Writing in both free verse and form, Simon reveals her sensitivity to the pains and joys of family life as well as to humanity’s deep connection to the natural world. Simon’s poems, rich with imagery, move from New York to Spain to Israel. Simon’s wide-ranging collection helps the reader to express her own sorrows and joys and provides a deeply satisfying emotional experience not to be missed.
—Ellen Sazzman, author of The Shomer


Jessica Genia Simon’s poems weave family, trauma, the natural world, and the self, complete with all their suffering and beauty. Her poems give voice to the raw humanness of our time. She is a poet who you will want to know.
—Carly Sachs, author of the steam sequence and editor of the why and later

48 pages, Paperback

Published April 12, 2023

Reviews

[Jai Lescieur · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Built of All I Shape and Name by Jessica Genia Simon some time ago, but it has stayed with me in ways I can't quite put into words. Her poetry feels so raw and intimate, like stepping into someone's most vulnerable moments. She writes about family, identity, and loss with such tenderness, weaving in beautiful imagery from the natural world that makes her work feel grounded and alive.

What struck me most was how she captured the complexities of relationships - there's pain, but there is also love, resilience, and hope. Her words have this quiet power that lingers long after you've closed the book. Even though I don't remember every poem in detail, I remember the emotions her writing stirred in me.

If you enjoy poetry that feels honest and deeply human, this is definitely worth reading. It's the kind of collection you'll want to revisit, finding something new to connect with each time.

[Johanna DeMay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vidid, honest, passionately felt, Jessica Simon's poetry collection takes us along on her journey of self-discovery. She shares memories of a little girl’s search for her place in the world, for “the right flower / that will tell her / she is enough.” In Toledo, Spain, she discovers history and identity recorded on the walls of “a Catholic church, once a synagogue, then a mosque…” In Israel among rows of granite gravestones inscribed in Hebrew, she confronts the inherited trauma her mother never shared. She writes about her miscarriages, roller-coasters of hope and heartbreak. We watch her built her nest of "carefully chosen twigs…/ colorful scraps…/ …observed the dandelion in a sidewalk crack, stepped on hundreds of times, / grow." Simon’s poems spring from deep emotion revealed in beautiful language. Read her book—it will move you.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slim debut collection with themes of identity, family, loss, sexuality, and heritage.

from Deck of Cards: "I drop all the cards on the floor. / I pick up a pen to write a poem / about failed love as if this will / gather the cards / untangle the strings / order the papers / render the emptiness / anything more than a loss."

from Fear of Burning: "She touched lips, kissed a neck, / cradled and traced / hips all the while // shedding nineteen years of learning // not to kiss them for fear of burning."

from Jewish Tourist in Toledo, Spain: "There exists a certain amnesia / in countries and pious men. / One God paints over another, / switches the symbol above the door."

[Katie Zinler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this book of poems! I was intending to read one or two a night and devoured the whole thing in one sitting. I deeply appreciate Jessica’s ability to put feelings that I identify with into words. And I was particularly moved by her reflections on her own mother and it made me think about my life and role as a mother.