American Ash: Poems

by Michael Simms

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 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.” 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.

94 pages, Paperback

Published September 11, 2020

About the author

Michael Simms is a poet, writer, editor, publisher, and teacher. Four full-length collections of his poetry, seven novels, and two widely adopted poetry textbooks have been published or are under contract with publishers. He has also been the lead editor of over 100 published books, including the bestselling Autumn House Anthology of Poetry, now in its third edition. Simms has taught at a number of universities, including Chatham University’s MFA program from 2005-2013. He was awarded a Certificate of Recognition from the Pennsylvania legislature in 2011 for his service to arts and letters.

Reviews

[Angela Pocta · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is hard to review poetry but I absolutely loved this collection. I read The Summer You Learned to Swim on Poetryfoundation.org and became obsessed. I was going to say this is poetry about simple things but that’s not quite right.

“Being ordinary makes you a hero-

Sweeping the porch, looking at the sky,
You become more than yourself. The solace for being

Dull is being perfectly at ease with the world,”

[Ellen Foos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deeply moving, sometimes personal, sometimes political, often both.

[Andrea Janov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not feel a true throughline in the collection. Felt too surface. Too safe.