Sandra Simonds's Blog

Thought I would update with some links to poems that are coming out in my 4th book, The Glass Box (Saturnalia, 2015). Much thanks to the editors at these journals who published this work.

“Journey of Marie de Medici” atCatch-Up

“I am Inside the Humanities” atThe American Poetry Review

“I Grade Online Humanities Tests” atthe Awl

“Poem Composed Entirely of Lines from my Stalker” atHTML Giant

“The Abstract Humanities” inthe Seneca Review

“Similitude at Versailles” in theColorado Review

Just wanted to let you know that the amazing Tony Trigilio, poetry professor at Columbia College of Chicago interviewed me for his radio show, Radio Free Albion. Check it out here.

I’ve also got some new sonnets from House of Ions online here:

Three Sonnets atThe Brooklyn Rail.

Black Leotard at Better Magazine.

I’m happy to announce that my sonnet, “Red Wand,” was chosen as one of the Readers’ Choice poems for the 2012 poem-a-day hosted by the Academy of American Poets. I’m very proud to be in such good company. Thanks to everyone who voted for me! Also check out this lovely poem by my friend Megan Kaminski.

I spent a good part of the day reading Horace. Here are some of the lines that stood out for me from the Epodes and the first book of Odes. Enjoy.

From the Epodes:

Fate has decreed that wolves and lambs should be / no more at odds than you and me

If any man with impious hand has broken/ his aged father’s neck/ let him eat garlic

Groaning she worked to bury him/ where each long day the boy/ would three times see the rich fare served to him/ and seeing it, would die/ only his face above ground, / l...

Yes, I hired one. I have talked for years about the idea of hiring a maid but I finally did it. It was funny because I called a few places and I kept telling them that I don’t have a dishwasher or a washer and dryer and my house is actually pretty clean and they were very adamant about telling me that maids don’t do the dishes or the laundry. They seemed also indignant about it. And I’m just thinking to myself OK, you’re a maid that refuses to do the dishes? So, what do you do? We wash the fl...

There are these peculiar things that I don’t understand about myself. For example, I can’t stand it when people talk about yogurt. I don’t know why but it fills my whole being with disgust and remorse for the human condition. But why yogurt? I’m fine talking about ice cream, crab cakes, granola bars. Why yogurt? Also, I think that I have a mild version of misophoniabecause the sound of someone drinking water and gulping is sometimes completely unbearable to me. I don’t have an extreme case of...

Did he drink a lot of coffee? Yes, he did. 50-80 cups A DAY? How can this be? How can this be? Writing my essay about sonnets—a lot of emailing and asking friends what they think. Interested also in failed sonnets, what makes things not work in poetry. I imagine with sonnets you always have to be a little bit ahead of the form, a little bit more clever orirreverentor passionate or they just don’t work at all. This must be why often one will hear something like “she has mastered the form” beca...

Two funny things my 94 year-old grandmother upon seeing a picture of Charlotte:

1. She’s not as pretty as you, Sandra. (????)

2. You look good (considering everything that you’ve gone through).

As Cal says “tact is for the birds”

The vet called me today clearly pissed-off. Apparently, the check that I wrote to pay him bounced. I must have been so out of it that I used a check from a bank account from like 5 years ago. Oooops.

So, having another baby means many trips to the doctor for routine vaccinations. This morning I watched this Frontline, on the vaccine debate. The anti-vaccine people sort of remind me a bit of the Young Earth Creationists, you know these people who think that Jesus placed dinosaur bones into the earth to test the faith of Christians since the world is 5,000 years old etc. Because I’m married to a geologist, we talk a lot about thisnonsense. Anyway, I think technology (google and social netwo...