Image Description: Front cover of S is for Sentence shows an illustrated figure in dark robes holding a sheet of symbols, set against stylized mountains and a circular halo-like backdrop.

About S is for Sentence: This collection extends the theology of Peter Lombard's Sentences. Lombard was a twelfth century professor of theology who was promoted to the office of the Bishop of Paris and died one year later. The connected poems here re-imagine the first two sentences of his four-volume encyclopedia of Christian theology known as the The Sentences. Within a break of Lombard's second sentence erupts an uncontained metaphysical variety of characters, aromas, fantasies, popular culture references, and rock and roll, spilling forth and forged by a surprisingly fresh voice. This is a collection of poems which reads like the world itself. It sutures the instability of text with haunting imagery, resentment, goofiness, grief, and visceral longings. It surprises and delights the reader until the very last page.

About the Author: Thomas E. Simmons is a professor at the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law in Vermillion, South Dakota.