Search - List of Books by Charles Simic
"Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket." -- Charles Simic
Du?an “Charles” Simi? ( ; born 9 May 1938) is a Serbian-American poet, and was co-Poetry Editor of the Paris Review. He was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2007.
"Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships.""Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them."
Early years
Simic was born in Belgrade, Serbia then part of Yugoslavia. Growing up as a child in war-torn Europe shaped much of his world-view, Simic states. In an interview from the Cortland Review he said, "Being one of the millions of displaced persons made an impression on me. In addition to my own little story of bad luck, I heard plenty of others. I'm still amazed by all the vileness and stupidity I witnessed in my life." Simic immigrated to the United States with his family in 1954 when he was sixteen. He grew up in Chicago and received his B.A. from New York University. He is professor emeritus of American literature and creative writing at the University of New Hampshire and lives on the shore of Bow Lake in Strafford, New Hampshire.
Career
He began to make a name for himself in the early to mid 1970s as a literary minimalist, writing terse, imagistic poems which, like those of William Blake, have their roots in observed objects that serve to extrapolate the universe.
Over the years, Simic's style has come to be considered immediately recognizable. Critics have often referred to Simic poems as "tightly constructed Chinese puzzle boxes." Simic himself has stated: "Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat and the poet is only the bemused spectator." The quote intimates Simic's philosophy that true art must be greater than the person who created it.
He writes thoughtfully on such diverse topics as jazz, art, and philosophy. He exerts considerable influence not only as poet, but as translator, essayist and philosopher, opining on the current state of contemporary American poetry. He held the position of poetry editor of The Paris Review, and was replaced by Dan Chiasson.
Simic was one of the judges for the 2007 Griffin Poetry Prize and continues to contribute poetry and prose to The New York Review of Books.
Simic received the US$100,000 Wallace Stevens Award in 2007 from the Academy of American Poets in recognition of his outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.
Simic was selected by James Billington, Librarian of Congress, to be the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, succeeding Donald Hall. Billington referred to "the rather stunning and original quality of his poetry".
- MacArthur Fellowship (1984-1989)
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1990)
- Wallace Stevens Award (2007)
Each year links to its corresponding "[year] in poetry" or "[year] in literature" article:
Poetry
- 1967: What the Grass Says
- 1969: Somewhere among Us a Stone is Taking Notes
- 1971: Dismantling the Silence
- 1972: White
- 1974: Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk
- 1976: Biography and a Lament
- 1977: Charon's Cosmology
- 1978: Brooms: Selected Poems
- 1978: School for Dark Thoughts
- 1980: Classic Ballroom Dances
- 1982: Austerities
- 1983: Weather Forecast for Utopia and Vicinity
- 1985: Selected Poems, 1963-1983
- 1986: Unending Blues
- 1989: Nine Poems
- 1989: The World Doesn't End: Prose Poems (1990 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry )
- 1990: The Book of Gods and Devils
- 1992: Hotel Insomnia, Harcourt
- 1994: A Wedding in Hell: Poems
- 1995: Frightening Toys
- 1966: Walking the Black Cat: Poems, (National Book Award in Poetry finalist)
- 1999: Jackstraws: Poems (New York Times Notable Book of the Year) ISBN 0156010984
- 2000: Selected Early Poems
- 2001: Night Picnic, ISBN 015100630X
- 2003: The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems ISBN 015603073X
- 2004: Selected Poems: 1963-2003, 2004 (winner of the 2005 International Griffin Poetry Prize)
- 2005: Aunt Lettuce, I Want to Peek under Your Skirt (illustrated by Howie Michels)
- 2005: My Noiseless Entourage: Poems, ISBN 0151012148
- 2006: Monkey Around
- 2008: 60 Poems, ISBN 0156035642
- 2008: That Little Something: Poems, ISBN 0156035391
- 2008: Monster Loves His Labyrinth, ISBN 1931337403
- 2008: Army: Memoir. In preparation
- 2010: Master of Disguises"
Translations by Simic
- 1970: Ivan V. Lalic, Fire Gardens
- 1970: Vasko Popa, The Little Box: Poems
- 1970: Four Modern Yugoslav Poets: Ivan V. Lalic, Branko Miljkovic, Milorad Pavic, Ljubomir Simovic
- 1979: Vasko Popa, Homage to the Lame Wolf: Selected Poems
- 1983: Co-translator, Slavko Mihalic, Atlantis
- 1987: Tomaz Salamun, Selected Poems
- 1987: Ivan V. Lalic, Roll Call of Mirrors
- 1989: Aleksandar Ristovic, Some Other Wine or Light
- 1991: Stavko Janevski, Bandit Wind
- 1992: Novica Tadic, Night Mail: Selected Poems
- 1992: Horse Has Six Legs: Contemporary Serbian Poetry
- 1999: Aleksander Ristovic, Devil's Lunch
- 2003: Radmila Lazic, A Wake for the Living
- 2004: Gunter Grass, The Gunter Grass Reader
Prose
- 1985: The Uncertain Certainty: Interviews, Essays, and Notes on Poetry
- 1990: Wonderful Words, Silent Truth
- 1992: Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell
- 1994: The Unemployed Fortune-Teller: Essays and Memoirs
- 1997: Orphan Factory: Essays and Memoirs
- 2000: A Fly in the Soup: Memoirs
- 2003: The Metaphysician in the Dark
