Jim Simmerman

Jim Simmerman Poems

Jim Simmerman Biography

Simmerman was born in Boulder, Colorado, in 1952. He received his MFA in Poetry from University of Iowa in 1980. He was Regents Professor of English at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he led poetry writing workshops and served as an advisor to the literary journal Thin Air. He took his own life on June 29, 2006 in Flagstaff, Arizona after a long illness. His poems have appeared widely in journals (Antæus, Georgia Review, North American Review, Ploughshares, Poetry), anthologies (The Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, The POETRY Anthology 1912-2002, Pushcart Prize X: Best of the Small Presses), and textbooks (Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing; Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem: A Guide to Writing Poetry; Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry); and his poetry writing exercise "Twenty Little Poetry Projects" generated the anthology Mischief, Caprice, & Other Poetic Strategies (Red Hen Press, 2004), edited by Terry Wolverton. He is also co-editor, with Joseph Duemer, of Dog Music: Poetry about Dogs (St. Martin's Press, 1996).)

The Best Poem Of Jim Simmerman

The Eternal City

Sometimes I picture your face on money.

But this isn't Rome, where they know
what money's worth, which is almost

the paper it's printed on (a kind of art),

and where I stared what seemed eternity
into a guidebook, lost, side-skipping

pigeon past, motorbikes, and swarms

of gypsy tykes excavating the ruins
of tourists' pockets, until I stumbled

onto the Temple of the Golden Arches-

McDonald's!- and across the piazza,
the Pantheon.... Inside, third niche left,

alone a moment with the Ossa et cineres

of Raphael, I thought of you; "put it all
in the poem" was your advice so, okay,

here you are! - among the camcorders,

cell phones, retired gods, and a pair of
kings - rumpled, broke, and amused

as you were the Green Mountain morning

you asked: among us who was writing
for posterity?, and one of us knew. Bill,

I haven't paid you your due, but need

another favor: could you please undie
so I can buy you the glass of good

rosso in the Eternal City I owe you?



William Matthews, poet and teacher (1942 - 1997)

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