The Good Truth by R.B. Simon

The Good Truth, the fiercely validating debut from R.B. Simon, is a blazing manifesto of claiming identities within a gritty world. Summoning Mary Oliver’s reflective beauty and the gut-punching urgency of Andrea Gibson, Simon invites us to hold up any sense of being the “other” as our own good truth we must victoriously sing.

–Lisa Marie Brodsky, Poet, Author of Motherlung and We Nod Our Dark Heads

Through the excavation of the varied truths of her life R.B. Simon has gifted us with her poems, each one a shining, multi-colored agate, its language and imagery polished and glistening. The swift, poignant turns of language and thought surprise, gently immersing the reader in the pain and seemingly unbearable sadness of a mixed-race brown girl who says the “entire planet is my homeland/but I claim no home.” Her poems read as if she dug out and examined each one, clearing off the sand to reveal the shine and swirl of a knowing created through tremendous pressure. Through her poetry we witness her search for home, connection with others, and ultimately her body. The Good Truth is hard truth. It’s a salient truth mined from the bodies and lives of those living along meridians. It’s time we all learn from and honor the difficult and beautiful unfolding of women like her. R.B.’s poems—a tribute to her gentle spirit of survival and reclamation—are a must read.
–Chris Stark (Anishinaabe, Cherokee, and white) is the author of Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation, a Lambda Literary Finalist.

Radio interview with Madison, WI Public Radio 89.9 FM WORT.

WORT website: https://www.wortfm.org/who-we-are-in-totality-a-conversation-with-poet-r-b-simon/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WORTtalk/posts/4051791224907708
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WORTtalk/status/1387482010344562691