Collisions and Transformations

By Leslie Simon

Using chant-rhythm beats to create layers of harmony and meaning, Simon weaves poetry from jazz, sex, and geography.

These poems uncover the music in the names of streets in San Francisco, in the controlled passion of jazz rhythms, and the mystery of female sexuality, using chant-rhythm beats to create diaphanous layers of harmony and meaning.

Collisions and Transformations reads like a wind chime. In the section, "Street Bleats," poems influenced by Gertrude Stein take us on a language and sound journey down the streets of San Francisco. In the last section, "Alive," fish heads, jay-walking, and postcards become vehicles for a confirmations of the poet's commitment to change and transformation, to the ability of words to rise and stir. In poems that in turn sing loudly, and hum inwardly, Collisions and Transformations explores with an enchanting musical quality relationship to family, society and spirituality.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0918273935
• ISBN13: 9780918273932
• Release Date: July 1991
• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Poetry as song and wisdom...

Leslie Simon's poetry is always a language of heart and mind...she praises and laments family, friends, culture, the world at large with poetry that sings right off the page. I always pass her work onto my students, and I read it when I my glass feels more empty than full. Another wonderful thing is that, as a person, she's as complex, wise and inspiring as her poetry...as a writer myself, I (sadly)know this isn't always true...so, collide and transform with this collection of poetry from a true human being.