No Place to Hide: Introducing the Poetry of Sandra Simonds

In a deeply personal voice Sandra Simonds gives us blunt and raw honesty, so needed in the ever growing nightmare of today’s world.

BEGINNING WITH A LINE BY ANNE SEXTON AND ENDING WITH A LINE BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

Time grows dim. We pack the car for the drive east to the other side of Florida. We don’t know if the hurricane will really hit Tallahassee this time. I think of the meme my friend sent that made me laugh: a photo of a lawn chair blown over and a caption that reads “WE WILL REBUILD.” Texts from family: Better safe than sorry. Are you guys okay? My kids in the backseat, earbuds in, listening to music. Calypso, the poodle, also in the backseat, snout between her paws. Across bridges, waterways, the rain picks up. It is night now; we drive in silence. The animals know it’s coming. I’ve seen them seek cover before. When we arrive, the hotel is so clean and metallic. A fortress. “I hope the house is okay,” I say to my sleeping husband. In the morning, I wake up and open the curtains. The storm shifted course at the last minute and now the hotel has lost power. I look out at the garden— the cow lilies heads tremble in wind.

BEGINNING WITH A LINE BY ANNE SEXTON AND ENDING WITH A LINE BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

Angel of hope and calendars, do you despair? When your children grow older. When pictures of them from six months ago are unrecognizable. When you find grey eyebrow hairs. When your father’s voice on the phone sounds sad. When the days are marked “red” for dad’s house and “blue” for mom’s. When your daughter packs her things and cheerfully says, “see you on Monday!” and you respond, “make sure you take your medicine.” When you tell her not to chew with her mouth full. When you say, “use your knife,” and “don’t put your feet on the table!” When your son says he swam the 100 butterfly five seconds faster. When your crow’s feet deepen. When you find grey pube hairs and report this to your husband. When you long for the one man in the world who could ruin your life to call, but he doesn’t call and never will. When you know it’s for the best. When you see him at Whole Foods checking every avocado to see if it’s ripe. When he sees you and runs away. When you publish another book. And another. When you fear no one will publish another one of your books and that you will slip into the dirt anonymous. When you know that, either way, you will slip into the dirt anonymous. When you hear the ocean in the morning and remember the day you walked to city hall and got married for the health insurance. When you didn’t believe in romance yet, almost a decade later, the tenderness between you overwhelms. Oh Sandra, who says the angels, in your ear, are heard?

BEGINNING WITH A LINE BY ANNE SEXTON AND ENDING WITH A LINE BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

I write for you. My life has taken many paths, but they’ve all forked back to language.
I get up before the children wake. I’ve written deep into the night. For two years, I left Florida every week and wrote in the anesthetic light of airports. I wrote in the airport chapel where a woman cried softly and kept saying, “mom.” I wrote in an old farmhouse in Vermont that wasn’t mine. I got up to the falling snow, made my coffee, wrote books. A friend took me into her backyard and pointed at a pile of colors next to leaves. It was a book almost entirely dissolved by the elements. I carry that red with me every time I lay down another word. I carry the sun, the stars, and moon. I swaddle my vocabulary like an infant. This is the only time I permit a gentleness. I write for you, to bring you back, to wake the dead. I am Faust. I am thirsty. I am dirt. I am a feeling on the page, a life rearranged. It is five o’clock in the morning. I pour cream into my coffee and slice an apple I’ve grown from my tree. The dog is dreaming. I ask for so little. The witches can hear me. Send my roots rain.

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Sandra Simonds, an award-winning author of ten books, has dedicated the past two decades to teaching creative writing and literature. She has taught at Thomas University, Bennington College, Florida State University, and the University of Montana. Her latest book of poems, Cassandra Data, is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press in 2026. She is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently, Triptychs (Wave Books, November 2022) which was a 2022 New York Times selection. Her awards include the University of Akron Poetry Prize for Further Problems with Pleasure chosen by Carmen Giménez and the Cleveland State University Open Poetry Prize for Mother Was a Tragic Girl. She has been a finalist for numerous awards including the National Poetry Series. Her first novel, Assia (Noemi Press, 2023), based on the life of Assia Wevill, won the 2023 Vermont Book Award in Fiction and was shortlisted for the Dzanc Fiction Prize. Her poetry, criticism, and creative nonfiction have been published in the New Yorker, The New York Times, Best American Poetry, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Chicago Review, Granta, Boston Review, Ploughshares, and others. She was the recipient of the Reader’s Choice Award from the Academy of American Poets and is currently working on a book of experimental essays that are a hybrid of memoir, journalism, and literary criticism. Pieces from this manuscript are forthcoming in McSweeneys, Gulf Coast, the Seneca Review and elsewhere. Sandra has also been granted residencies at The Arctic Circle Residency, Millay Arts Colony, the Archipelago Arts Residency in Korpo, Finland, Vermont Studio Center ,and Studio Faire in Southern France. She earned a B.A. in Psychology and English at UCLA, an M.F.A. at the University of Montana, and her Ph.D. (with honors) in Creative Writing at Florida State University. In her spare time, she enjoys trail running, camping, yoga, and travel.

You can buy Sandra’s recent book here

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Delights!

5 Tiny Delights:

Color theory

Hanging out with my poodle, Calypso

Trail running

Going to Sephora with my daughter

Going to my son's swim meets

5 Tiny Jewish Delights:

Making latkes with my kids

Teaching the poetry of Paul Celan

Chinese food on Christmas

Researching my Sephardic family history

Watching Youtube videos about the Zohar with Daniel Matt