I Believed in Literature and Love: Sandra Simonds's I've Lived In So Many Apartments

Responding to a Facebook status update, Sandra Simonds was nice enough to send me a copy of her latest chapbook, I've Lived In So Many Apartments. My copy doesn't quite look like the one she posted on her website--mine has two squares of fabric stitched on the cover with blue thread. And, to be honest, I think I prefer it this way.

On her blog, Simonds says that she wrote these poems, "for fun and to free myself from the burden of writing real poetry." This statement opens a whole barrel of monkeys for me because, the way I see it, these poems are real. And not only are they real, they are real funny.

Humor is perhaps the hardest thing to pull off in poetry, but Simonds makes it look easy here. In "Nova," the speaker tells us:

When I get sad and lonely and depressed
I tend to smoke pot, zone out, and watch
"The L Word" with my 9 month old baby
Or walk down Market Street with
My 9 month baby
And everyone on the street is reciting
Their lines to "The L Word" and hoping
That they won't get hit by a moon
Today.

In "Yoga," there is a page and change of "Ahhaha" and this little nugget:

I resent other things too.
I resent it when people tell me to
"be like the Buddha."
Hey, fuck you.
I'll be like the Buddha if I want to.

These are just a few examples--and I think I'd spoil it if I quoted anymore poems here. Of course, some people will be opposed to these poems on principle, maybe saying that they aren't poems, so why bother? These poems are anything BUT a bother. If you like it funky and funny, you need to pick up this little chapbook, now.