Sixty Poems - Softcover

Simic, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156035642 ISBN 13: 9780156035644

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2008

Synopsis

Here are sixty of Charles Simic's best known poems, collected to celebrate his appointment as the fifteenth Poet Laureate of the United States.

About this title

About the Author

CHARLES SIMIC was born in Belgrade and emigrated to the United States in 1954. He is the author of many books of poetry and prose. Among other honors, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 and served as the Poet Laureate of the United States in 2007-2008.

From the Back Cover

Here are sixty of Charles Simic's best-loved poems, collected to celebrate his appointment as the fifteenth poet laureate of the United States.
Charles Simic has been widely celebrated for his brilliant poetic imagery; his social, political, and moral alertness; his uncanny ability to make the ordinary extraordinary; and not least, a sardonic humor all his own. Gathering much of his material from the seemingly mundane minutia of American culture, Simic matches meditations on spiritual concerns and the weight of history with a nimble wit, shifting effortlessly to moments of clear vision and intense poetic revelation.
"Few poets have been as influential--or as inimitable--as Charles Simic." --The New York Times Book Review

"It takes just one glimpse of Charles Simic's work to establish that he is a master, ruler of his own eccentric kingdom of jittery syntax and signature insight." --Los Angeles Times

Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1938, and immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1954, at the age of sixteen. Recently retired from the University of New Hampshire, where he taught American literature and creative writing, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 and held a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant from 1984 to 1989. He is the winner of the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Unending Blues, 1986

toward nightfall

 

for Don and Jane

 

The weight of tragic events

On everyone’s back,

Just as tragedy

In the proper Greek sense

Was thought impossible

To compose in our day.

 

There were scaffolds,

Makeshift stages,

Puny figures on them,

Like small indistinct animals

Caught in the headlights

Crossing the road way ahead,

 

In the gray twilight

That went on hesitating

On the verge of a huge

Starless autumn night.

One could’ve been in

The back of an open truck

Hunkering because of

The speed and chill.

 

One could’ve been walking

With a sidelong glance

At the many troubling shapes

The bare trees made—

Like those about to shriek,

But finding themselves unable

To utter a word now.

 

One could’ve been in

One of these dying mill towns

Inside a small dim grocery

When the news broke.

One would’ve drawn near the radio

With the one many months pregnant

Who serves there at that hour.

 

Was there a smell of

Spilled blood in the air,

Or was it that other,

Much finer scent—of fear,

The fear of approaching death

One met on the empty street?

 

Monsters on movie posters, too,

Prominently displayed.

Then, six factory girls,

Arm in arm, laughing

As if they’ve been drinking.

At the very least, one

Could’ve been one of them:

 

The one with a mouth

Painted bright red,

Who feels out of sorts,

For no reason, very pale,

And so, excusing herself,

Vanishes where it says:

Rooms for Rent,

And immediately goes to bed,

Fully dressed, only

 

To lie with eyes open,

Trembling, despite the covers.

It’s just a bad chill,

She keeps telling herself

Not having seen the papers

Which the landlord has the dog

Bring from the front porch.

 

The old man never learned

To read well, and so

Reads on in that half-whisper,

And in that half-light

Verging on the dark,

About that day’s tragedies

Which supposedly are not

Tragedies in the absence of

Figures endowed with

Classic nobility of soul.

against whatever it is that’s encroaching

 

Best of all is to be idle,

And especially on a Thursday,

And to sip wine while studying the light:

The way it ages, yellows, turns ashen

And then hesitates forever

On the threshold of the night

That could be bringing the first frost.

 

It’s good to have a woman around just then,

And two is even better.

Let them whisper to each other

And eye you with a smirk.

Let them roll up their sleeves and unbutton their shirts a bit

As this fine old twilight deserves,

 

And the small schoolboy

Who has come home to a room almost dark

And now watches wide-eyed

The grown-ups raise their glasses to him,

The giddy-headed, red-haired woman

With eyes tightly shut,

As if she were about to cry or sing.

 

Compilation copyright © 2007 by Charles Simic

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

 

Edition details

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0156035642
• ISBN 13: 9780156035644
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 108