Summary

To celebrate Simics appointment as the15th Poet Laureate of the United States, 60 of his best-known poems are collected in this work.

Author Biography

Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1938, and immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1954, at the age of 16. Recently retired from University of New Hampshire, where he taught American literature and creative writing, he was appointed the 15th Poet Laureate of the United States in August 2007. He has published more than 20 collections of poetry, as well as essay collections, translations, and a memoir. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 and held a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant from 1984 to 1989. The Academy of American Poets has just named him winner of the Wallace Stevens Award.

From Unending Blues,1986
Toward Nightfall	p. 3
Against Whatever It Is That's Encroaching	p. 6
From The Book of Gods and Devils,1990
St. Thomas Aquinas	p. 9
Factory	p. 11
Shelley	p. 12
The Devils	p. 15
The White Room	p. 17
The Big War	p. 19
Paradise	p. 20
In the Library	p. 21
From Hotel Insomnia,1992
The Prodigal	p. 25
Hotel Insomnia	p. 26
The Tiger	p. 27
A Book Full of Pictures	p. 29
Evening Walk	p. 30
Romantic Sonnet	p. 31
The Old World	p. 32
Country Fair	p. 33
From A Wedding in Hell,1994
Paradise Motel	p. 37
The Clocks of the Dead	p. 38
Leaves	p. 39
Transport	p. 40
Crazy About Her Shrimp	p. 41
Reading History	p. 42
Empires	p. 44
Mystics	p. 45
Via del Tritone	p. 46
The Secret	p. 47
From Walking the Black Cat,1996
Mirrors at 4 a.m.	p. 51
Cameo Appearance	p. 52
What the Gypsies Told My Grandmother While She Was Still a Young Girl	p. 53
Little Unwritten Book	p. 54
Slaughterhouse Flies	p. 55
An Address with Exclamation Points	p. 56
Entertaining the Canary	p. 57
Ghosts	p. 58
At the Cookout	p. 60
Club Midnight	p. 62
Pastoral Harpsichord	p. 63
Have You Met Miss Jones?	p. 64
From Jackstraws,1999
The Soul Has Many Brides	p. 69
Mummy's Curse	p. 70
The Common Insects of North America	p. 71
The Toy	p. 72
From Night Picnic,2001
Unmade Beds	p. 79
The One to Worry About	p. 80
Sunday Papers	p. 81
The Altar	p. 82
My Father Attributed Immortality to Waiters	p. 83
The Lives of the Alchemists	p. 84
From The Voice at 3:00 a.m.,2003
Grayheaded Schoolchildren	p. 87
Serving Time	p. 88
Late September	p. 89
From My Noiseless Entourage,2005
Self-Portrait in Bed	p. 93
To Dreams	p. 94
My No
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Excerpts

From Unending Blues, 1986toward nightfallfor Don and JaneThe weight of tragic eventsOn everyones back,Just as tragedyIn the proper Greek senseWas thought impossibleTo compose in our day.There were scaffolds,Makeshift stages,Puny figures on them,Like small indistinct animalsCaught in the headlightsCrossing the road way ahead,In the gray twilightThat went on hesitatingOn the verge of a hugeStarless autumn night.One couldve been inThe back of an open truckHunkering because ofThe speed and chill.One couldve been walkingWith a sidelong glanceAt the many troubling shapesThe bare trees madeLike those about to shriek,But finding themselves unableTo utter a word now.One couldve been inOne of these dying mill townsInside a small dim groceryWhen the news broke.One wouldve drawn near the radioWith the one many months pregnantWho serves there at that hour.Was there a smell ofSpilled blood in the air,Or was it that other,Much finer scentof fear,The fear of approaching deathOne met on the empty street?Monsters on movie posters, too,Prominently displayed.Then, six factory girls,Arm in arm, laughingAs if theyve been drinking.At the very least, oneCouldve been one of them:The one with a mouthPainted 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, onlyTo lie with eyes open,Trembling, despite the covers.Its just a bad chill,She keeps telling herselfNot having seen the papersWhich the landlord has the dogBring from the front porch.The old man never learnedTo read well, and soReads on in that half-whisper,And in that half-lightVerging on the dark,About that days tragediesWhich supposedly are notTragedies in the absence ofFigures endowed withClassic nobility of soul.against whatever it is thats encroachingBest 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 ashenAnd then hesitates foreverOn the threshold of the nightThat could be bringing the first frost.Its good to have a woman around just then,And two is even better.Let them whisper to each otherAnd eye you with a smirk.Let them roll up their sleeves and unbutton their shirts a bitAs this fine old twilight deserves,And the small schoolboyWho has come home to a room almost darkAnd now watches wide-eyedThe grown-ups raise their glasses to him,The giddy-headed, red-haired womanWith eyes tightly shut,As if she were about to cry or sing.Compilation copyright © 2007 by Charles SimicAll 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 f

Excerpted from Sixty Poems by Charles Simic
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