An important part of being a writer is to surround yourself with people who understand your pursuit of the craft. These people can spark ideas, they can test your creativity. But, more importantly, they can understand you in a way that few can.
I had the opportunity to attend graduate school with Simmons Buntin. This means I was able to see his skills as a writer, and to see his skills as a writer grow. But I saw something else about this guy: He's so much more than a poet. His poetic skills - empathy, compassion, listening, awareness - infuse everything he does in life. He's a man in the world with environmental passions, a man who listens to opposing views with openness and humility, a man who takes pride in being the best husband and father he can be. Simmons Buntin's latest book - BLOOM - has recently been released by Salmon Poetry. I highly recommend putting this book on your reading list, not only because it's a good thought-provoking read and not only because it supports poetry, but because it supports a good person in this world who just so happens to be a talented poet.Provided below is an introduction to Simmons and the book from Salmon Poetry: Bloom Simmons B. Buntin
ISBN: 978-1-907056-49-9
Page Count: 98
Publication Date: Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Cover Artwork: Simmons B. Buntin
About this Book
Simmons B. Buntin writes with scrupulous attention to the agency of love in a wounded and venomous world. Whether he considers Hiroshima or dead albatrosses, the small marvels of finches or ladybugs, or his daughter’s accidental plunge through a plate glass window, his poems celebrate nature, family, and the healing power of beauty. Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of Science and Other Poems, The Monarchs: A Poem Sequence, Genius Loci, and Rope
Set largely in the rugged but resplendent borderlands of Arizona and Sonora, Mexico—and ranging as far afield as the Israeli desert, the Sweden of his mother’s youth, the Midway Atoll, and Hiroshima, Japan, on the 40th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb—Simmons B. Buntin’s second collection of poems, Bloom, gathers unexpected insight from our built and natural landscapes to blossom into poems of striking beauty and stunning realization. Shine, the book’s first section, ranges from the violet light of the last night in Eden to a daughter’s coming of age and desire. Flare, the second section, weaves from roadside wildflowers to an evening in SoHo to a mother’s memory of Nazi bombers overhead before her own storied migrations to America. And Inflorescence, the final section, braids the experience of a daughter recovering from emergency surgery following a severe accident, with the slow and mesmerizing bloom—or inflorescence—of the yard’s magnificent agave. In reading the poems of this finely crafted and lyrical book, you’ll find that—like the daughter releasing ladybugs in the poem “Shower”—the open room of your heart, too, will be filled with “pure red joy.”
Author Biography
Simmons B. Buntin is the American author of one previous book of poems, Riverfall, published by Salmon Poetry in 2005. His award-winning poetry and prose have appeared in numerous North American and European journals and anthologies. He is the founding editor of the acclaimed international journal Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments, for which he also writes a regular editorial. He is the recipient of the Colorado Artists Fellowship for Poetry, an Academy of American Poets prize, and grants by the Arizona Commission on the Arts and Tucson Pima Arts Council. He is an avid photographer, website designer, and all-around rabble-rouser who lives with his wife and two daughters in the Sonoran desert of southern Arizona. Catch up with him at www.SimmonsBuntin.com.
Sample Poems
Whether You are Listening or You are Reading
there is a poem for you and it may
be like this poem for my wife
who listens to a podcast and sometimes
laughs so hard her earbuds drop
and she looks at me and smiles, shares
the story of the actress and her monologue
or the man who unwittingly confesses
his most embarrassing moment on the radio
before she tucks the tiny white speakers
back into her ears. On the other side
of the table I slip into a book of poems,
sometimes nodding or clicking my tongue
in agreement before looking away
to the shelves across the room, the white
antler discovered in a saffron field,
or the photographs of my daughters
who are asleep now in their rooms,
Juliet curled beneath a quilt of flowers,
Ann-Elise bent across her black blanket,
foot draped over the bedframe, the house quiet
except for those burbling springs of laughter
and the murmur of turning pages
as I think of you again, listening or reading—
the poem paused by the person you love.
Shine
Pouring the black light into every crevice,
we follow the thick vertebrae of the wall
until the moon and bats rise—
until the purple radiance fills the night. There
and there, all at once, the poisonous scorpions shine,
their exoskeletons like intricate green
imps stealing moths at twilight.
We keep their gruesome glow in our minds
and on our tongues as we talk
through the empty hours of the drive home:
the dark mountain pass, the pressing lights
of the city, the dim lane leading
to our house—and then brake hard
at the tangled braid of red and yellow and
black. Eyes open and shining, jaw heavy
with venom, the coral snake’s body
is bent upon itself, rolled tight from the quick black
wheels of the day. Gathering ourselves
now into the car, into the silent rooms
of our house, there is a violet
light pouring over everything and nothing,
like that last terrible night in Eden
when every sharp animal rushed to hide
in all the exposed crevices of the world.
Comments
Thanks Cameron, I'm honored. These are humbling words coming from a person with your breadth of experience, compassion and passion, and writerly know-how.
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!