A Selected History of Her Heart

Through the lens of her singular and compelling life, Carole Simmons Oles guides us through our fractured, confused, violent century. At seventy, facing an increasingly fragile body, Oles crafts language that creates bonds—across cultures and tongues, across decades and oceans and continents. These powerhouse poems reach out generation to generation with generosity and compassion. These poems invite us in, offer food and drink and shelter. Peggy Shumaker, author of Gnawed Bones

In her eighth book of poetry, Carole Simmons Oles engages the tough material of memoir: a long sequence on her experience living in Morocco in the 1960s, teaching teenagers not much younger than she was. The concluding sequence takes readers to Rome, to welcome the birth of the poet’s first granddaughter. Blood, art, travel, and transgression are the materials of these gorgeous poems. Read them and rejoice in the reach of Oles’s art. Hilda Raz, coauthor of What Becomes You