A few words from the author of "Requiem in Laramie"

Kevin Simmonds, author of "Requiem in Laramie," a prose poem recently published in our short form, online edition of Bellingham Review shared with us a meditation on his poem and its significance.


We have such short memories. Soul-grabbing atrocities only momentarily command our attention and call our consciousness to larger responsibilities.

I'd like to think that art can be a residue, a re-membering that plays as refrain inside us. My poem "Requiem in Laramie" is relatively short and, I hope, tiny enough to aggravate memory without calling too much attention to itself.

The poem is for us, not Matthew Shepard. The mother and the missing child are many of us or people we've known or heard about. The poem is representation of something else, a stand in. That's not to say it isn't fully itself as a poem, a piece of artwork. But I swear I've failed in many ways if that poem is only about itself.
-Kevin Simmonds