Souls and the city

"Rita A. Simmonds' poems offer a soulful account of life in New York, not the mythical, magical destination of tourists, but the grim, gritty city eight million people call home. SOULS IN THE CITY bears witness to the lived experience of real New Yorkers, from the young couple falling in love in Goldberg's Pizzeria to the married couple having their Friday night fight against the backdrop of R&B on their car radio, from Jesus the Beggar sitting on the bare pavement to the Wise Woman searching the snowy streets for the sleeping Christ Child, from the visionary beauty of the Verrazano Bridge by night to the bald Battery bereft of its Twin Towers. Simmonds' city pulsates with pain and with beauty, the two becoming one as the poet weaves from the tiny particulars of city life the universal story of suffering and redemption, consolation and desolation, despair and (always) hope. Simmonds' poems constitute glancings of grace, intimate glimpses of shimmer and shine that redeem the ugliness of urban life. Following in the footsteps of her poetic forbears Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, and Allen Ginsberg, Rita Simmonds has discovered the soul of her city and blesses her readers with her vision." --