Our Writers
David Zimmermann
David Zimmermann was conceived during the time of the first atomic bomb testing and born in March 1946, two facts he finds riveting.
He started writing poetry at 15 and has never stopped. Boxes and boxes of his poems are scribbled on scraps of paper, tucked safely away from miscreants and scholars in a friend's attic. Names for the Known, released in 1988 and currently out of print, was his first book of poems.
Zimmermann co-wrote, with Jacqueline Froelich, Total Eclipse: The Destruction of the African American Community of Harrison, Arkansas, in 1905 and 1909. Tedious and thorough research resulted in the two winning the Violet B. Gingles Award from the Arkansas Historical Quarterly in 1999 for the best paper on Arkansas history.
"I undertook the project so that the last surviving African-American from the influx of tourist industry workers in Eureka Springs, Nigger Rich, would have his day in court," Zimmermann said. "Nigger" Rich Banks, who had no enemies anyone can remember, died in 1975.
Zimmermann now writes poetry while standing at a podium so his publisher will be able to read his scrawl. Dissipated Assets was written from his bed (where he says he is most creative) requiring continual clarification.
He is thinking of writing a biography of Edward Carpenter, the vegetarian, sandal-wearing, openly gay English socialist poet and activist who provided genuine spiritual relief during the puritanical Victorian Age.
David Zimmermann has lived in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, since January 1971.
