We read and discuss "Astronaut," by Simona Regina Adams, then take a deep dive into Zack's amazing new book, The Kama Sutra for Senior Citizens and Other Poems on Aging. Zack Rogow is the author, editor, or translator of more than twenty books or plays. His tenth book of poems, The Kama Sutra for Senior Citizens and Other Poems on Aging, is now available from Valley Press. Click here for USA orders, and click here for UK orders. Hugging My Father’s Ghost: A Memoir of a Shortened Life, Zack’s book about his writer dad, will be republished by Cirque Press on October 6, 2026. His previous books of poetry include Irreverent Litanies, from Regal House. Zack’s play, Colette Uncensored (coauthored with Lorri Holt), had its first public reading at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and has been staged in London, Catalonia, San Francisco, Indonesia, and Portland. Zack’s most recent book of translations is The Water Drinkers and Other Sketches of Paris in the Romantic Era by Henry Murger, the writer who inspired La Bohème. Zack is the editor of an anthology of poetry of the U.S.A., The Face of Poetry, from University of California Press. His song lyrics include “A Love for Just Part” recorded by Carrie Wicks. He has taught in several MFA creative writing programs, and serves as a contributing editor of Catamaran Literary Reader. Zack has received the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award in Translation, the Celestine Award for Poetry from Holy Names University, and the Tanka Splendor Award. Simone Regina Adams (1967– ) is best known as a fiction writer, but her poetry is also excellent, dealing with provocative subjects. Her novel, Die Halbruhigen [The Half-Restless], was awarded the Werner Bräunig Prize. Adams lives in Freiburg, Germany, and works as a psychotherapist. Her poem “Astronauts” evokes the wonder and emptiness of going into space, perhaps as a metaphor.
