Jackie Simmons

Jackie boasts a few ancestors from Yorkshire, in addition to being 
Emily Dickinson’s seventh cousin, five times removed (but claims that her family tree has not helped her writing along one iota).

From the time she was five years old until she was twenty-two, Jackie took barbiturates to quell a childhood seizure disorder. In the slightly hypomanic state that she found herself in once the pharmaceutical fog lifted from her brain, she began to write poetry. Her first editor, the late Robert “Sal” Salasin of RealPoetik, advised her to take a train to New York City to meet some of his friends and learn from the community of poets there. She did so, in 1995.  Jackie has been performing at open mics—along with a doing a few slams and features—ever since.

Jackie recently graduated summa cum laude from Fairfield University, where she earned a bachelor of arts degree in English with a minor in psychology. She is currently pursuing a master of arts degree in English Literature at Mercy College. Jackie is also a member of four academic honor societies, but is afraid to list them here for fear of being booted out of some of them were they to discover the racier pages that are to be found in this book.

The poetic influences for this book are far-ranging—from Allen Ginsberg to Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

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