Kevin Simmonds

Mad for Meat Kevin Simmonds

San Francisco poet and musician, Kevin Simmonds was trained as classical singer but grew up in jazz, blues, and gospel-drenched New Orleans. His poems travel the distance from southern spiritual's lamentation, to gay men in a Bangkok sex club, to competitive hot dog eating. With tender expansiveness Simmonds readily turns to assess what causes others consternation, shame, and fear: be it sexual abuse, racism, organized religion, or sexual mutilation. In considering all our lives and circumstances, he meditates on the apple tree: crouched down as if something brutal had happened / for the sweetness to come. Mad for Meat is his first collection. ""With many views and many unique ways of presenting them, Mad for Meat is a fine read that shouldn't be overlooked.""-Midwest Book Review