Sandra Simonds w/ Burning Oracle

We invite you to listen to Sandra Simonds discuss her new book of poems, Burning Oracle, a visionary, all-encompassing story told within a broken world where myth and reality collide. Sandra will be in conversation with Craig Beaven, who will also read samples of his own work. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Burning Oracle is a visionary, book-length poem told from the fractures of a world on fire where myth, memory, and contemporary life collide. Cassandra--seer, mother, survivor--wanders through forests of digital noise and historical trauma, her voice both ancient and urgently new. 

At the heart of the poem is a pilgrimage to the grave of poet Paul Celan where she traces personal loss within the wider context of inherited trauma--particularly the Holocaust--and seeks meaning in the act of remembering. As floods rise and fires rage, the personal and historical ignite a mythic voice. Through the commonplace of stained dresses, shattered screens, and supermarket aisles, Cassandra encounters figures like Goya, Reynard the fox, and Celan himself, weaving their stories into an intertextual, image-rich landscape. Burning Oracle is a feminist reckoning, a personal mythography, and a testament to the power of poetry to animate the archive of history, memory, and everyday life.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Sandra Simonds, an award-winning writer and professor, is the author of ten books. She also works at the intersection of the visual arts and text. Sandra has taught at Thomas University, Bennington College, Florida State University, and the University of Montana. Much of her writing focuses on capitalism, class, ecology, and gender through avant-garde experiments with genre and form. 

Her awards include the University of Akron Poetry Prize and the Cleveland State University Open Poetry Prize. She has been a finalist for several awards, including the National Poetry Series. Her first novel, Assia, won the 2023 Vermont Book Award in Fiction. 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, and more. She was the recipient of the Reader’s Choice Award from the Academy of American Poets. She holds a B.A. in Psychology and English at UCLA, an M.F.A. at the University of Montana, and a Ph.D. with honors in Creative Writing at Florida State University.

Craig Beaven is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently In Arcadia (7 Kitchens Press) and Teaching the Baby to Say I Love You (Anhinga Press Poetry Prize). His work appears in Pleiades, Hollins Critic, Western Humanities Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and many others. Beaven has been awarded scholarships and fellowships to the Sewanee Writers Conference, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, the Vermont Studio Center, and others. A Kentucky native, he earned a PhD from the University of Houston. His fifth book is forthcoming as winner of the Orison Press Poetry Prize.

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