The Next Breath by Richard Sime

The Next Breath—what wise, civil, loving poems about mothers and fathers, lovers and pets, disappointment and joy!  What do we write when life is, almost, done?  This dutiful son from the prairie, now seventy-eight, has written a book that abounds with a human presence and a passion for life.

–Henri Cole

To borrow from Henry James, Richard Sime is a writer on whom nothing is lost. The meditations and narratives that make up this collection have a reflective, ceremonial pace, one that makes room for emotional complexity and nuance. For example, in portraits of his family of origin, their flaws and failings, Sime intertwines empathy with judgment, allegiance with a sense of loss. Likewise, in his self-portrait as a gay man coming of age and living in a homophobic society, we feel the poet’s loneliness, yearnings, and courageous authenticity. Sime also captures moments when love, pure if not simple, is felt, and the even rarer moments when it is sustained. The Next Breath is an unsentimental but open-hearted depiction of the life we are given as it is joined with the life we make for ourselves.

–Fred Marchant, Author of Said Not Said (Graywolf Press)

The Next Breath is comprised of poems that glisten. Memories unfold, poem to poem, of both the interior and exterior worlds of the speaker. Sime is comfortable with narrative and moves the poems down the pages seamlessly. Within the narratives are delicate lyric moments—”the aroma of eucalyptus, / the vineyards, the wines, / the drinking, the mother’s morning / climb down seventy-eight stairs to the water, / the son’s hangovers at surf’s edge.” This is how narrative kisses the lyric moment. And there’s more here—hangovers bring to mind the son hanging over the surf, suspended, as if hanging himself. This is but one example of the layering that Sime so masterfully employs. The Next Breath is truly a compelling collection.

–Martha Rhodes

The Next Breath is a collection of poems that revolve around the fundamental yet risky subjects of family, sexuality, old age, a continual yearning for attachment while fearing attachment’s instabilities, and underlying all of these a disquieting, intense apprehension of time and loss. Great good humor and heart-wrenching sorrow, mid-century Midwestern bleakness and urban vitality, domestic peace and chaotic desire—these terrific poems are as wide-ranging and inclusively humane as they are lyrically intense. Richard Sime is a beautiful poet whom everyone who cares about the art should read.

–Alan Shapiro