Jack H. Simons began his work career as a paper boy in Gary, Indiana, when he was eight years old. It was long enough ago that when he started he carried seven different Chicago papers every Sunday. He later studied writing and worked as a reporter for a Texas newspaper. He pastored independent Baptist churches for 21 years, and then studied creative writing and essay writing at the University of Iowa. He taught writing for 25 years, and besides a ton of journalism, has written one unpublished novel, one unproduced screenplay, numerous essays, and several poems and short stories.
Jack has written 16 article(s) for RedFence Magazine.
Poem: I Believe in Art by Jack Simons Especially when Mozart or Bach With complex musical reason Inflame my spirit, and I catch the logic Of holy counterpoint, and hear the heavens Opening their eternity to my crabbed spirit, I rise to meet the sun that has yet to show Itself in the darkened […]
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Instead of Fear by Jack Simons I don’t believe I was really awake when General Douglas MacArthur gave his famous speech at West Point to accept the Sylvanus Thayer Award on July 12, 1962. I had graduated from high school 35 days earlier, and was more interested in girls, Fords and Chevies, college in the […]
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California Dream by Jack Simons A Honda showroom in Monterey, California – January 1966 – not a fancy place, just a concrete slab structure with large display windows set between Del Monte Avenue and the beach – a landscape of scraggly trees and sand-acclimated weeds. In a back room the owner showed us a prototype […]
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Life Portraits by Jack Simons I first encountered Édouard Manet while in the army. A friend spread prints of his paintings across a bunk to show me. I had somehow mixed up Manet in my mind with the ever-present Claude Monet — and who could avoid Monet in this modern world? — Christmas cards, public […]
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Watching Old Movies: Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Jack Simons When I attended Baylor University in 1962, I had to choose one of three dormitories: Penland: the newest and most expensive; Brooks: the oldest and cheapest; Kokernot: twelve years old and middle-priced. I reasoned I didn’t want to live with the rich, nor did I […]
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In the daytime I banged in and out of the kitchen screen door to play. One day a girl’s voice addressed me through the side window of the house next door.
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