American Children is an elegy-in-verse. Its thematic pillars--four long elegies--are bridged by three sequences: one of poems in free verse, another of poems in traditional and not-so-traditional forms, a third of "miniatures" that are brief verse snapshots arranged in pairs and processions. American Children explores the many possibilities of form, texture and tone in the elegy--from free verse to formalist, from straightforward to surreal, from somberly meditative to dazzlingly wise-ass.

Jim Simmerman has published four poetry collections and co-edited the anthology Dog Music: Poetry About Dogs. He has received fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Bread Loaf and the National Education Association. He is a regent's professor of English at Northern Arizona University. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.