Simple Simons Press Poetry

Call for Submissions

Simple Simons Press is preparing its next anthology venture, the Words Not Weapons anthology of Peace poems.

10/4/2023 (Random Acts of Poetry Day)

It's the beginning of October, and that means it's time for Pushcart nominations. As a small press editor and publisher, I get the distinct privilege and pleasure of being able to nominate up to 6 pieces that I edited and/or published this year for consideration for the next Pushcart Award collection, which will be published in 2025. This year, Simple Simons Press published two anthologies of poetry, Mad As Hell: An Anthology of Angry Poetry  and Hope Springs Eternal: An Anthology of Hopeful Poems.  From those two publications, I've chosen the following poems to submit to the Pushcart committee for consideration for inclusion in the next edition of the collection.


From Mad As Hell:

“An Ode to Anger” by Mariana Goycoechea

“Strange Fruit Still” by Debbie Allen

“I’m Sorry You Are So Ugly” by Lynne Bronstein


From Hope Springs Eternal:

“This World is Loud (Watching Ukraine)” by Amanda Hayden

“It Didn’t Matter” by Thomas Barden


Please join me in congratulating these fine poets on their work and wishing them well as their work progresses through the evaluation process towards hopeful inclusion in the next edition of the Pushcart Collection. You may now all officially refer to yourselves as Pushcart nominees. Congratulations! 

Streetlight Sonata

J. R. Simons' first chapbook of poetry. 

"Streetlight Sonata" took Second Place for Poetry in the 2011 Sharp Writ Awards, Honorable Mention in the Poetry category of the 20th Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards (2012), and was a Poetry Finalist in the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. 

To purchase, click here: https://amzn.to/3XBPkIJ

The Naked Truth

J. R. Simons' second chapbook of poetry.

To purchase, click here: https://amzn.to/3K7cfIQ

Mad As Hell

Mad as Hell is a collection of angry poems by some of the nation's finest new, emerging, and established poets, including Mariana Goycoechea, John Burroughs, Kenneth Hickey, Debbie Allen, Lynne Bronstein, Joe Balaz, Laura Grace Wledon, Kelly Boyer Sagert, Alex Gildzen, Randy C. White, Thomas Barden, R. T. Castleberry, J. R. Simons, Tabassam Shah, and Jason Franklin Blakely.

To purchase, click here: https://amzn.to/40XuSVs

To purchase a digital copy, click here:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1306242


This collection of 31 poems by 15 of the nation's finest established and emerging poets explores the idea of Hope, a commodity desperately needed in this age of meanness, desperation, distrust, and apathy. Fresh off the success of Mad As Hell: An Anthology of Angry Poetry, Simple Simons Press founder and editor J. R. Simons has gathered some of the best poems expressing hope for a better future, or as Barbara Sabol reminds us at the end of her poem, "Summer along the Stonycreek" - "Listen now to the river's patter, reminding us/not everything is broken."