American Children is an elegy-in-verse. Its thematic pillars—four long elegies—are bridged by three sequences: one of poems in free verse, another of poems in traditional and not-so-traditional forms, a third of “miniatures” that are brief verse snapshots arranged in pairs and processions. American Children explores the many possibilities of form, texture and tone in the elegy—from free verse to formalist, from straightforward to surreal, from somberly meditative to dazzlingly wise-ass.

Jim Simmerman has published four poetry collections and co-edited the anthology Dog Music: Poetry About Dogs. He has received fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Bread Loaf and the National Education Association. He is a regent’s professor of English at Northern Arizona University. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.