This unique 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 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 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. 

Thomas E. Simmons is a professor at the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law in Vermillion, South Dakota. His first full-length poetry collection, Tod Browning Loose-Leaf Encyclopedia, was published by Cyberwit in 2020.