Inside the Invisible

Daniel Simpson has co-authored or co-edited two books with his wife, Ona Gritz, Border Songs: A Conversation in Poems and More Challenges for the Delusional: Peter Murphy's Prompts and the Writing They Inspired. He published School for the Blind in 2014. His work has appeared in many magazines and collections. The recipient of a Fellowship in Literature from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, he tends a blog, Inside the Invisible, which can be found at insidetheinvisible.com. Praise for Inside the Invisible: Daniel Simpson's excellent Inside the Invisible goes in and out of surprising places and makes matter-of-fact claims about love and loss feel like authentic discoveries. Having worked with him in the past, and thinking I had advance knowledge about what territory his new book was likely to take on, I was pleased that several poems dealt with his guide dog and established the speaker of them as a blind man, often vulnerable and humorous. But it was the unforeseen that pleased and surprised me most: a complicated father, an unsuccessful first marriage, and wonderfully rendered scenes of flirtations and sex, and eventually of new love. Which is to say his book takes us inside the invisible to the lives most of us live.-Stephen Dunn, author of Different Hours (Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, 2001) and The Not Yet Fallen World: New and Selected Poems This is a book of faith. Of desire. Of a blind poet asking, "So how shall I live inside the invisible?" Simpson's poems are threaded with Biblical allusion, philosophical musings, lovers, and guide dogs. With close attention to detail, the use of dialogue, and curiosity about the limits of communication, he interrogates life and chooses to embrace it again and again: "Marry me to the outside; / marry me to the inside. / Place my palms on the handlebars of the sun..." -Ellen Bass, author of 8 poetry collections including her latest, Indigo Melding a sympathetic listener's rich warmth with the zesty language of an equally sympathetic responder, Daniel Simpson creates the memorable poems of Inside the Invisible. Reading this beautifully calibrated book of poems as it unfolds from boyhood to maturity feels like sinking into a fresh bed after a long journey. Simpson's rare talent makes each poem come home to the essential truth that existence is multilayered and contradictory. Candid, sharp, ranging in tone from sexy to spiritual, Simpson's poems are always tuned to the sensuous pleasures of hearing. The wisdom of this poet gives back again and again in the bounty of the superb Inside the Invisible. - Molly Peacock, author of seven poetry collections including her latest, The Analyst: Poems.