An Ode to Friendship

<p>There is something difficult to address in the poems of<strong> </strong>Robert Simon's new collection <em>An Ode To Friendship.</em> Perhaps it is the purity contained in the flagrantly traditional and formal language that wraps itself from cover to cover. Some might find fault with such a jarring approach given the 21st Century we find ourselves gasping through of late. I am of the other opinion. When reading Simon's work I become lost in what one must assume to have been a painfully liquid transition through a seamless and unspecified period of time. These are poems where technique meets soul; where that very same soul is in a constant struggle with its brother intellect.<strong> </strong>Robert Simon sneaks up on us with this and the result becomes a deliciously subtle agony recognizing how<em> tears</em> and <em>tears</em> can intersect causing delight in the midst of despair.</p><p><br></p><p><strong> -Sam Pereira</strong></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>