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Though Simmons B. Buntin’s terrain has varied from the scrub oak hammocks of central Florida to the thorny scarps of the Sonoran Desert, the rolling hardwood hills of Maryland to the flagstone trails of the Colorado Front Range, his path seems always directed by the pursuit of an eloquent balance between the built and natural environments. He has published poetry and prose in a variety of publications, from Japan's elegant and important Kyoto Journal to the leading magazine of culture and place, Orion. He has a master's degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Colorado at Denver, concluded by an award-winning thesis on sustainable suburban downtown redevelopment. In 2009, he earned an MFA in creative writing (nonfiction) from the University of Arizona. Shortly after his first round of graduate school—back in 1997—he founded and today continues to edit the international, award-winning online journal Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments. Simmons transitioned from energy services program manager for the U.S. Department of Energy's Western Area Power Administration, after a stint in the software development world, to the role of web program manager for the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management, where he's worked since 2004. Since 2000, when he moved from Denver, he has lived in the community of Civano in southeast Tucson, Arizona, with his wife and two daughters.
He has won an Academy of American Poets Prize, Colorado Artist's Fellowship for Poetry, and grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Tucson-Pima Arts Council. His first book of poetry, Riverfall, was published in 2005 by Ireland's Salmon Poetry. His second book, Bloom, was puablished by Salmon Poetry in 2010. Besides his family, Simmons's interests include writing and photography (hence the website), the nexus between the built and natural environments (hence Terrain.org), sustainable community design (including New Urbanism), hiking, Harry Potter, microbreweries and brewpubs, Auburn Tigers football, fantasy football, and Halloween festivities. View some of his other "favorites" here. View Simmons's other pages: |
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Home | Contact Simmons | Site Map Copyright © 2011 by Simmons B. Buntin. All rights reserved. |
Simmons readily admits that poetry and prose—the written or spoken word, the interplay of slight magic in the relationships of those things around and within us—must be at the heart of any successful, livable place. Composing the language is a brilliantly frustrating task, involving intricate details and entire communities. But it is the vital structure of our terrain, the stability and the change we need to survive. And to thrive. 