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Charles Simic (1938–2023)

Author of The World Doesn't End

105+ Works 3,570 Members 35 Reviews 9 Favorited

About the Author

Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, immigrated with his family to Chicago in 1954, and was educated at New York University. Although his native language was Serbian, he began writing in English. Some of his work reflects the years he served in the U.S. Army (1961--63). He has been show more awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, a Guggenheim Foundation grant, and a National Endowment for the Arts award. "My poetry always had surrealistic tendencies, which were discouraged a great deal in the '50's," the poet said, but such tendencies were applauded in the 1970s and his reputation consequently flourished. His poems are about obsessive fears and often depict a world that resembles the animism of primitive thought. His work has affinities with that of Mark Strand and has in its turn produced several imitators. Simic was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2007 (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Library of Congress

Works by Charles Simic

The World Doesn't End (1989) 340 copies
Walking the Black Cat (1996) 183 copies
Hotel Insomnia (1992) 148 copies
Jackstraws: Poems (1999) 144 copies
Sixty Poems (2007) 127 copies
Selected Poems, 1963-1983 (1985) 104 copies
The Best American Poetry 1992 (1992) — Editor — 102 copies
The Book of Gods and Devils (1990) 96 copies
Unending Blues: Poems (1986) 85 copies
A Wedding in Hell (1994) 83 copies
Selected Early Poems (1999) 78 copies
The Lunatic: Poems (2015) 70 copies
Night Picnic: Poems (2001) 54 copies
Master of Disguises (2010) 54 copies
New British Poetry (2004) — Editor — 51 copies
Selected Poems (2004) 47 copies
Austerities: Poems (1982) 36 copies
No Land in Sight: Poems (2022) 17 copies
Looking for Trouble (1988) 12 copies
White (1972) 11 copies
Frightening Toys (1995) 9 copies
5 blind men (1969) 7 copies
9 Poems (1989) 7 copies
What the Grass Says (1967) 6 copies
In the Beginning (1986) 4 copies
Four Yugoslav Poets (1970) 3 copies
Prodigy (2010) 2 copies
Il titolo 2 copies
Ploughshares Fall 1986 (1986) 2 copies
El mundo no se acaba (2013) 2 copies
Brooms : selected poems (1978) 2 copies
Avvicinati e ascolta (2021) 2 copies
Ludak 1 copy
Sin tierra a la vista (2023) 1 copy
Acércate y escucha (2020) 1 copy
Een hond met vleugels (1993) 1 copy

Associated Works

O Finado Mattia Pacal (1904) — Introduction, some editions — 1,949 copies
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (2000) — Contributor — 1,254 copies
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 915 copies
Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (2003) — Contributor — 765 copies
The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry (1990) — Contributor — 749 copies
The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology (1992) — Contributor — 388 copies
180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day (2005) — Contributor — 362 copies
McSweeney's Issue 22: Three Books Held Within By Magnets (2007) — Contributor — 335 copies
Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness (1993) — Contributor — 332 copies
The Best American Essays 2008 (2008) — Contributor — 290 copies
Mortification: Writers' Stories of Their Public Shame (2003) — Contributor — 280 copies
The Best American Poetry 2001 (2001) — Contributor — 223 copies
The Best American Poetry 1999 (1999) — Contributor — 208 copies
The Art of Losing (2010) — Contributor — 197 copies
The Best American Poetry 2006 (2006) — Contributor — 190 copies
The Best American Poetry 2005 (2005) — Contributor — 176 copies
The Best American Poetry 1994 (1994) — Contributor — 170 copies
The Best American Poetry 1997 (1997) — Contributor — 166 copies
American Religious Poems: An Anthology (2006) — Contributor — 162 copies
The Best American Poetry 1998 (1998) — Contributor — 161 copies
The Best American Essays 1995 (1995) — Contributor — 159 copies
The Best American Essays 1997 (1997) — Contributor — 154 copies
After Ovid: New Metamorphoses (1994) — Contributor — 153 copies
The Faber Book of Beasts (1997) — Contributor — 140 copies
The Best American Poetry 2008 (2008) — Contributor — 135 copies
The Best American Poetry 1993 (1993) — Contributor — 128 copies
The Best American Poetry 2010 (2010) — Contributor — 121 copies
Emergency Kit (1996) — Contributor, some editions — 108 copies
The Best American Essays 1988 (1988) — Contributor — 97 copies
The Best American Poetry 2015 (2015) — Contributor — 93 copies
The Best American Poetry 2017 (2017) — Contributor — 92 copies
Granta 124: Travel (2013) — Contributor — 92 copies
The Best American Poetry 2011 (2011) — Contributor — 85 copies
1941: The Year That Keeps Returning (2007) — Introduction, some editions — 69 copies
Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths (1684) — Contributor — 68 copies
Saul Steinberg: Illuminations (2006) — Introduction, some editions — 66 copies
The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink (2012) — Contributor — 63 copies
Contemporary East European Poetry: An Anthology (1983) — Editorial Consultant — 40 copies
Antaeus No. 75/76, Autumn 1994 - The Final Issue (1994) — Contributor — 32 copies
No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Poets (2003) — Contributor — 29 copies
60 Years of American Poetry (1996) — Contributor — 28 copies
Wonders: Writings and Drawings for the Child in Us All (1980) — Contributor — 18 copies
Stories from the Blue Moon Café IV (2005) — Contributor — 15 copies
The Paris Review 167 2003 Fall (2003) — Contributor — 12 copies
Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan, Volume 03 (2013) — Contributor — 11 copies
Thomas Campion: Poems Selected by Charles Simic (2007) — Editor — 7 copies
The Paris Review 84 1982 Summer (1982) — Contributor — 6 copies
The Paris Review 192 2010 Spring (2010) — Contributor — 5 copies
Antaeus No. 23, Autumn 1976 — Contributor — 1 copy
Kayak 8 — Contributor — 1 copy

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Reviews

Un libro con in copertina una fotografia di Saul Leiter parte molto bene, dunque io lo compro a scatola chiusa, ignaro dell'autore e immaginando un saggio su temi di estetica o storia dell'arte. Scopro - prima ammissione di ignoranza - che Simic è un poeta. Leggendo i primi scritti, mi ritrovo in un mondo di filosofia letta di notte, salsicce, blues strazianti, casualità con cui fare i conti, fotografie misteriose. E le prime 100 pagine circa volano con gran piacere, fra un riferimento a Emily Dickinson e uno a William Carlos Williams (che conosco solo grazie a Paterson di Jarmusch - seconda ammissione di ignoranza). Le pagine successive - che non sono poche - diventano un po' più frammentarie in quanto maggiormente legate a recensioni (di esposizioni o testi). Emergono riflessioni nuovamente vitali - per esempio quelle autobiografiche o lo scritto su Cornell - ma su un tono minore rispetto a quello della per me folgorante apertura di libro. A ogni modo, lettura piena di libertà, ironia e meraviglia, che lascia almeno un paio di compiti a casa (leggere le poesia di Simic - e anche quelle di Williams e Vicente Huidobro, magari).… (more)
 
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d.v. | 1 other review | May 16, 2023 |
The poems in No Land in Sight include those whose vivid imagery imprinted on my brain.

Tango

Slinky black dress
On a wire hanger
In an empty closet
its door slid open

To catch the draft
From an open window
And make it dance
As in a deep trance

The empty hangers
Clicking in unison
Like knitting needles
Or disapproving tongues.

from No Land in Sight by Charles Simic

And poems of insight into the common experience.

In the Lockdown

I might have gone stir-crazy,
If not for my memories,
Those lifelong companions
Cooped up with me for months
And eager to console me

With stories of men and women
Who withdraw from the world,
And endured years of solitude
And dark nights of the soul
Thriving in some hole-in-the-wall

Where they found lasting peace
Obeying a voice in their heads
Telling them to just sit quietly,
So that the quiet can teach them
Everything they ought to know.

from No Land in Sight by Charles Simi

There are personal memories of a life unlike my own.

Where Do My Gallows Stand?

Outside the window
I looked out as a child
In an occupied city
Quiet as a graveyard.

from No Land in Sight by Charles Simic

Many of the poems are reductions that pack a punch bigger than their size would indicate. Charles Simic writes of quietly falling snow, dogs barking in the night, the hopefulness of an old woman going to the mailbox. Commonplace visions reveal depths of emotion, a few overheard words paint a portrait.

The opening poem is Fate, consisting of one line: “everyone’s blind date.” We ruefully chuckle.

At first I was puzzled by these poems, seemingly so direct and transparent. As I read on, I realized their beauty and truth. I will seek out his earlier work.

I received a free book from A A Knopf. My review is fair and unbiased.
… (more)
 
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nancyadair | Aug 29, 2022 |
I gave the book four stars, but I think I'm being kind. The only reason I recommend the book is for its imagry. Other than that, if you the sort who doesn't want to read the abstract, then I suggest you don't buy the book.

 
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ennuiprayer | 5 other reviews | Jan 14, 2022 |
This book by one of my favorite poets is an eclectic assemblage of all kinds of essays, an odd basket-full containing biographies of obscure writers and lesser-known artists, memoirs of a childhood and youth spent living in the kinds of historical times that are now denied, and whimsical ruminations on things, habits, and music. I think you would have to be several different people to enjoy every piece in the volume.

Yet I repeatedly considered purchasing it to re-read and annotate (I had taken it out of the library). Simic knows more than most the viciousness, cold-hearted evil, and deliberate violence that lives under the mask of civilization, but he also knows that sausage and popular music can make up for a lot of the carnage, and that surrealism is best served up with humor, earthiness, erudition, and sometimes, childishness. There are many, many sentences and paragraphs here that deserve to be nailed up on telephone poles to be ignored by those who believe in nationalism, Utopia, or human perfectibility.

In other words, he still has a great deal of Yugoslavia in his soul even if he has lived in the US since he was a teenager.

One year, when I was an English teacher and he was the Poet Laureate of the United States, I went to an English teacher's convention and heard him read his poems in a small room. Gentle-voiced, with a slight accent and a deadpan face, he wore tinted glasses and read his wonderful, absurd poems to a small, bewildered audience who perhaps were there because other talks were full and because they needed to rest their feet.

I recommend the book highly but only if you want to have a funny, cynical view of the human race beaten into your head by accident with a saucepan by someone who is quoting obscure Polish or Argentinian writers in the process.
… (more)
 
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dmturner | 1 other review | Jun 29, 2020 |

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Statistics

Works
105
Also by
64
Members
3,570
Popularity
#7,099
Rating
3.9
Reviews
35
ISBNs
170
Languages
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Favorited
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