Charles Simic Books

This book is a careful examination of a longstanding area in philosophy that nonetheless has tended to be consigned to the margins: the relationship between philosophy and art. This is so partly because, traditionally, each are seen as challenging the other, and at times, even demanding to threaten one another's very defining substance (or at least, status). Yet John Lysaker shows how they can enrich one another. If one allows oneself to be taken up by the text, addressed by it, Lysaker shows how philosophy can be used to illuminate just how it is that certain works of art lay claim to our lives and, if we're open to it, significantly change our lives as well.

Lysaker leads readers through a philosophical exploration into the workings of poetry in a way that, through the birth of sense, challenges the very borders of philosophical thought. Subtle and powerful.

Simply breathtaking. Amazing photographs from one of the most creative photographers of this generation.

"What I like in poems is encountering the unexpected and I enjoy not knowing where I am or what comes next." ~ Charles Bernstein

Reading the entire "Best American Poetry" series would seem a fitting challenge for any poet or lover of poetry. Along the way I've felt various levels of involvement in the emotions presented as images flashed across the inner landscapes of my mind. In "The Best American Poetry 1992" I felt as if I was watching a movie as images came at me in their startling poetic beauty. I mostly felt stunned, in awe of the power of poetry to recreate moments with vivid inflection.

Guest editor Charles Simic presents a highly memorable introduction with images of members of an Amazon tribe, flute players and the sense that poets are in some way writing love letters to God. To be honest, I knew this book would be highly memorable when I held the book in my hands and noticed the artwork on the cover. This book speaks to you before you open the first page. You know that within these pages, mirrors will appear.

My thought while reading this book was mostly about why we long to read poetry. What drives this desire to read books of poetry? Is this our souls longing for a love letter from God or are we seeking some substance from the invisible worlds of thought where at times words describing reality can be more authentic than reality itself?

While reading these poems you may find yourself facing the shock of darkness, the glare of light and something between that is beautiful and shimmering. The desire to share experience, perhaps born of loneliness for words, is so evident.

"There were barred windows glaring at him
from the other side of the street
while the sun deepened into a smoky flare

that scalded the clouds gold-vermillion.
It was just an ordinary autumn twilight--
the kind he had witnessed often before--"
~Man on a Fire Escape

The poems Charles Simic chose for this anthology reveal well researched reflections, complex intricacies and startling beauty presented like a gourmet feast of words. Robert Bly reveals sadness in nature while bringing humor to a bird's tenacity. Daniel Halpern paints images of two cats and their similar desire for attention. Robert Morgan's "Honey" studies a beehive and seems to explore deeper emotional implications. Liam Rector presents a poem about Lighting Bugs that created in me scent memories of freshly cut grass and sweltering summer nights.

David St. John's poem almost left me blind, the way beautiful words all in a row leave me dizzy and intoxicated. Here, he takes us into a woman's "black telescope of the pupil," a mysterious world where he finds beauty and danger:

"Emerging Venus steps up along the scalloped lip
Of her shell, innocent and raw as fate, slowly
Obscured by a fluorescence that reveals her simple, deadly"

I love the end of the poem the most, where he refers back to a line earlier in the poem, tying the story together, a completion of thought that is rather satisfying.

Rachel Srubas writes of marriage and then later describes her feelings about poetry and love: "...in order to comment on the poem, I have to talk about love, which, I've learned, plunges us into our darkest histories and then brings us back up still breathing, with artifacts to show for ourselves."

What is intriguing about this book is the explanations of the inspiration behind the poems, so often missing in many anthologies, well, most of them. The Best American Poetry series gives us a window into which we can peer and what we see often teaches us about the truthfulness of poetry's expression.

"The Best American Poetry 1992" left me a little speechless with its overwhelming creative power. The power to transport you into a poet's world, imaginary or real. That power of connection that makes you feel as if you were there writing at your desk (like Lawrence Raab) when the monster appeared.

"Behind him: the dark scribbles of trees
in the orchard, where you walked alone
just an hour ago, after the storm had passed,
watching water drip from the gnarled branches,
stepping carefully over the sodden fruit.
At any moment he could put his fist
right through that window."
~The Sudden Appearance
of a Monster at a Window

~The Rebecca Review

Charles Simic, Classic Ballroom Dances (Braziller, 1980)

With Classic Ballroom Dances, Simic's eighth book of poetry, he hit his best stride. Better than Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk, better than Charon's Cosmology, better even than his Pulitzer Prize-winning The World Doesn't End, Classic Ballroom Dances may, in fact, be the finest single book of poetry released in the twentieth century in the English language. It certainly stands on a short shelf with The World Doesn't End, Carruth's Collected Shorter Poems, Lowell's Lord Weary's Castle, the Collected Poems of Aime Cesaire, etc.

Surrealism is not an easy thing to come by in English. One may think it so, judging by all the surrealist wannabes that have been scampering around for the past half-century or so, but true surrealism requires both a deep understanding of the French poetry upon which it is based (this is where most surrealist wannabes fall short) and an aptitude for combining the form and function of surrealist poetry with English, integrating the linguistic wordplay of English with the French diction. (This is where a lesser number of surrealist wannabes fall short, but note the two often overlap in truly untalented individuals.) The handful of American surrealists who do it right-Eshleman, Stroffolino, Simic, a few others-have an understanding of this so ingrained it's almost second nature. That's why Eshleman can write The Gull Wall, or Simic can write Classic Ballroom Dances, and have them come out sounding just as fresh and witty as the best translations from the French (Benedikt's, Hamburger's, et al). Simic's "Ditty" may be the perfect English surrealist poem:

"...live as a bride of no one
the sister of algebra
could you love and remember
and remember only to forget
could you live as a dog without a master..."
("Ditty")

Simic's charms are, of course, not limited to being the illegitimate child of some secretive tryst between Guillaume Apollinaire and Paul Eluard, however. He is equally a child of the more traditional imagist school, and is capable of painting sparse pictures of undeniable beauty:

"...In a clearing,
They sized me up and then took their distance.
Quiet folk, bent, emaciated,

For such is the season. Without clues,
With hands raised, I stood like a mare
In a blacksmith's shop, Smoke
Of a late December sunlight..."
("December Trees")

It is quite impossible for me to actually say how good Classic Ballroom Dances is; it has redefined the measuring stick. With it, Simic stamped himself not only one of the finest poets working in the latter half of the twentieth century, but put himself to the head of the class. This will almost certainly top my Ten Best Reads of the Year list. *****

This book remains one of my favorite collections of poems. It is good to begin with this book and read his next book...to view his work in sequence is like reading a wonderfully visual novel.

Charles Simic, Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk (Braziller, 1974)

It seems quite silly, in a time where poetry is such a neglected art, to say that an author "burst on the scene" pretty much at any time. But Return to a Place... was Simic's literary bursting, after a few chapbooks on small presses. This was the nation at large's first look at the man who, sixteen years later, would be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (for The World Doesn't End); even this far back in his career, it's easy to see why.

Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk is, as its title would suggest, a fountain of surrealist beauty. Simic, however, has more control with his work than most of the surrealists/dadas were able to achieve, lending his material a leaner, sparer power than one normally finds in surrealist work:

"Green Buddhas
on the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
and spit out the teeth."
("Watermelons")

All the slanted imagery, but with enough meaning close to the surface to be understandable. As well, the mix of humor and sorrow is a perfect translation of the feeling the surrealists strove to achieve and so often failed.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Get yourself a copy of this. **** ½

Stitt's analyses of the five poets are superb and full ofinsights, butperhaps most striking is his use of the philosophy of modern physics, fully explained in the introduction and developed throughout. An impressive performance and an excellent book overall. Beautiful design too!

I never expected to find a kindred spirit in Eastern Europe.

Radmila Lazic is a contemporary Serbian poet and the author of six poetry collections. She's edited two anthologies -- one of women's poetry, the other of anti-war letters -- and founded the journal, Profemina.

Until Nov. 23, 2003, I'd never heard of her.

Each year on my birthday, I go out to dinner, see a movie and buy a book of poetry. Finding the book is always my favorite activity. I enter the bookstore and amble over to the poetry shelves. After perusing through my favorites (Rilke, Poe, Gallagher, Frost, Keats, Shelley, Dickinson), I close my eyes and find a spot that feels right. Then I search the spines for a title that interests me. When I find one, I pull it out and flip through its pages, reading snippets of verse and rhyme to see if the words connect with me. The hunt continues until I find a dark jewel.

"A Wake for the Living," Lazic's first book of poetry translated from Serbian to English, was the third title I selected from the shelves this year. Within moments, I knew I needed to own this book.

Her writing was blunt, honest and pure. It was clear she understood my thoughts from thousands of miles away.

Charles Simic, Weather Forecast for Utopia and Vicinity (1983, Station Hill)

Charles Simic is a brilliant writer. Okay, enough said about that. Weather Forecast for Utopia and Vicinity is singular in his canon, and an essential book for Simic fans, because it is Simic in concentrated form; the pieces here are shorter than usual, more imagist, more surreal. In other words, Simic in "pure" form:

"The great Nietzsche supposedly
Once shaved a horse in Turin.

The same mad Nietzsche
Used to peek into his pocket-mirror,
From time to time,
To make sure he was still there.

It must have been the same mirror
He let the horse admire himself in
After the shave."
--"Grandmother Logic"

Full of the trademark wit and unexpected pleasures of all of Simic's works. Packs an extra punch thanks to brevity. Absolutely lovely. **** ½

Charles Simic is a poet whose work has many levels;mythic,funny,philosophical. He travels in cities, in vast landscapes and through the cosmos. This book of essays and memoires exemplifies his easy manner which takes the reader on a journey through poetry and through the formative moments in Simic's life. The tone is conversational, deeply moving in parts, helped along by Simic's wit and his way of seeing the world. He has the capacity to make us wonder at the universe while simulatneously questioning the foolishness of humanity in history. This book is well worth reading for those who enjoy his poetry, those who write poetry and those of us who share his passioninate love of life