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Dharma of Death and Desire

poems by Susannah Winters Simpson

Dharma of Death and Desire showcases Susannah Winters Simpson’s years in hospice nursing, psychiatric nursing, and  her work with recovering addicts. These decades of working in proximity to death and dying inform her view of living. It has provided her with deeply moving insights into the very human challenges we all face. Her poems offer us a common thread to grasp, especially when writing about grief and loss. This poet shares the gravitas not only of life’s inevitable passing, but also those exquisite moments occurring each day that call us to live a meaningful life .

POETRY / General

ISBN: 978-1-962082-56-3 (print; softcover; perfect bound)

LCCN: 2024949982

Released November 12, 2024

84 pages

Author Biography

Susannah Winters Simpson is a hospice nurse. Her work has been published in North American Review, Potomac, Wisconsin Review, South Carolina Review, POET, Nimrod International, Poet Lore, MORIA Literary Magazine, Salamander, Sequestrum, and SWWIM, among others. She was chosen as a 2023 Featured Poet for Miami’s SWWIM/The Betsy Hotel’s Reading Series, and her poems have been included in several anthologies. Four of her poems won second prize in CommuterLit’s 2023 National Poetry Contest. Simpson was recently featured in the Palm Beach Illustrated April 2024 Literati section in honor of National Poetry Month. Simpson is the founder and co-director of the Performance Poets of the Palm Beaches, Imagine Women Writing Retreats, and is Founder of Palm Beach Players for Change. Simpson holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College, a PhD from Binghamton University, and a Certificate of Advanced Study in therapeutic writing. She currently facilitates both creative writing and WriteRECOVERY groups.

Endorsements

“‘Death distorts your vision.’ But so does love, according to the generous and readable poems in Susannah Winters Simpson's book Dharma of Death and Desire. In these wise and musical poems, death and love metamorphize the everyday into a haunting and lovely world, from wild fields to hospital rooms, to sending ashes out into the ocean. From Harley Davidsons to hotels, every sense is awakened and changed. This poet moves us through her world from poem to poem, but only in the way of grace, honoring the beauty of life in all of its permutations.”
—Rachel Neve-Midbar, author of Salaam of Birds

“Susannah Winters Simpson has a sense of humor not far from that of Dorianne  Laux—quick witted, rueful, but also filled with an openness to the flavors of sadness and to a compassion that marks this collection as true wisdom—no pretense, all wisdom. Each poem brings its own pleasure and completeness, but the overall effect is that of a poet at the top of her game. Dharma of Death and Desire is one of the most fully realized books of poetry I have read in the last few years (and I read quite a few).”
—Joe Weil, author of The Plumber’s Apprentice, What Remains, The Backward Years

“The poetry of Susannah Winters Simpson is a reminder that many of us are always waiting for signs so that we might renew our faith. Poetry has the ability to escort the reader into a deeper understanding of oneself. Simpson’s poems guide us through the wonders of the outdoors and the remembrances of childhood. The center of this collection revolves around aging. Dharma of Death and Desire will hold your hand in the hospital and hospice. Simpson, however, does not succumb to sorrow or grief. Her love poems are as seductive as air and worthy of every breath. What is life without desire? What is life without the acceptance of dharma?”
—E. Ethelbert Miller, author of Fathering Words, How We Make Love on Nights We Don’t Make Love, How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask

“These wonderful poems are rooted in memory, and as such, they are steeped in the everyday as exceptional and the exceptional as ordinary, the narrators in these poems revealing what others might deem too personal—desiring too much, desiring too often, or desiring not enough. But as one narrator tells us in one of the early poems (“An Unrepentant Life”), she ‘should have promised to honor and obey. But instead, I struggle to stay married, struggle to be civil’ and ‘recall my tangos with Frankie.’ It is those tangos that make the poems in Dharma of Death and Desire dance.”
—Stephen Gibson, author of Self-Portrait in a Full Length Mirror, Rorschach Art Too, Frida Kahlo in Fort Lauderdale

Articles and Reviews