Plan B on Sandy Crimmins

Sandy Crimmins’ String Theory, ( $9.00 ISBN 978 09728312-9-1 Buy it here) was first published in 2005. String Theory is Sandy Crimmin's first book of poetry. Weaving together through string imagery the poetry articulates the perilous balance between science and faith. Ms. Crimmins explored through experiences and musings, the inevitable logic of analytical science and the raw truth and strength of nature. All four elements; fire, water, earth and air; are interspersed throughout the book, with the fifth element bringing the book to a close is time.

Ms. Crimmins also was an editor and a freelance producer at venues such as the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Pieceworks, the Sedgwick Cultural Center in Mt. Airy and the former YWCA of Germantown.

Ms. Crimmins’ poetry appeared in the anthologies “Poets Against the War,” “Voices in Wartime,” “Meridian Bound,” “The Eternal Now!” and “Pagan’s Muse,” and in the online magazine The Pedestal. Her short stories were published in a variety of print and electronic journals, including American Writing, Schuylkill Valley Journal and Philadelphia Stories: The Best of 2004-2006.

Her performance work “Iowa Summer,” with musicians Richard Drueding and Stephe Ferraro, was released as a CD several years ago. Her show “El Cid in Flamenco and Flames,” based on a reworking of the classic Spanish poem “The Lay of the Cid,” brought together musician David Falcone’ choreographer and fire-eater Tomas Dura, and a troupe of flamenco dancers.

In a review of String Theory, Rosemary Cappello, editor of Philadelphia Poets, said, “one feels the majestic strains of what the human soul can know.”

Sandy Crimmins was been published in a variety of print and electronic journals, including American Writing and Philadelphia Stories, and in the anthologies The Eternal Now, Meridian Bound and Pagan's Muse. Her work was read as part of the WritingAloud series in Philadelphia and in venues from Boston to Washington, DC. One show, Iowa Summer, created in collaboration with musicians Richard Drueding and Stephe Ferraro, was released on CD. Her most recent show, El Cid in Flamenco and Flames, brought together musician David Falcone, choreographer and fire-eater Tomas Dura and a troupe of flamenco dancers for a new look at the poem The Lay of the Cid.

She died suddenly while sitting next to her husband in their backyard in July, 2007. The shock of her loss continues to ripple through her neighborhood and across the city of Philadelphia. In addition to writing extremely well, there was a vibrancy about her that we have not seen much in our travels. She will be deeply missed.

String Theory is the closest book that Plan B Press has so far produced to the embodiment of the premise we have been trying to achieve of poetry with visuals, images with text in which both elements blend to make a great experience overall. It was Sandy’s idea, while discussing with our Creative Director, to use Harold and the Purple Crayon as an example of how she would like the book to appear. The collaboration between Sandy and our CD let to an incredibly unique little book. We are especially proud of it, and the poems themselves.

Crimmins is not interested in fluff here. She is asking the big questions, because :

“This is our sickness
What is printed on our genetic code
And carried through our veins

This is what is our from birth
This is what makes us human
What marks us searching
Through thought and emotion: “

-from ‘Our Beginning and Our End’

as we attempt to find harmony :

“(Until our souls can recognize
The joys our ears cannot hear)”

-from ‘Doxology for the Human Soul’

In a mere 37 pages, Sandy Crimmins adds to the volumes of scientific and philosophic research and datum, simply speaking as a poet on the weighty subject of humans BEING here and what that means to the universe. We long for answers we cannot find in life. For:

“we couldn’t accept
That in the beginning
There was no beginning, no end
No way to pull form or shape
Smell or texture
From the grey swirl”
-from ‘Genesis’

Perhaps she knows those answers now.