Lampblack and Ash

[T]here is something utterly in thrall here, honey-slow and fixated. Driven by obsession—in particular, obsession with the legendary French poet, Robert Desnos—Muench’s identification with a true self beyond the self’s known truth is startling.—from the introduction by Carol Muske-Dukes

“Simone’s poems have a confidence and sophistication of what I like to call intentionality. Also wit, grace, poise, and a relationship to writing beyond self-referential feeling.”—Anne Waldman

“Lush, sprouting, sensuous images line-by-line, adopting myth freely, Muench’s poems are volatile explosives, circling beauty.”—James Tate

Simone Muench is poetry editor of ACM and is an assistant professor at Lewis University, as well as a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Chicago.