1A and 1B: Charles Simic (1938--)

Charles Simic was born in Belgrade in 1938.
He was the U.S. Poet Laureate in 2007
and is on the faculty of the University of New Hampshire.
You can read his poetry at this page.
His poetry appears frequently in anthologies.
One of his celebrated poems is "Prodigy."
You can read it and listen to him read it aloud here.

"I wanted a poem a dog can understand."

from his interview with the Paris Review

"Charles Simic is widely recognized as one of the most visceral and unique poets writing today. Simic’s work has won numerous awards, among them the 1990 Pulitzer Prize, the MacArthur Foundation 'genius grant,' the Griffin International Poetry Prize, and, simultaneously, the Wallace Stevens Award and appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate. He taught English and creative writing for over thirty years at the University of New Hampshire. Although he emigrated to the U.S. from Yugoslavia as a teenager, Simic writes in English, drawing upon his own experiences of war-torn Belgrade to compose poems about the physical and spiritual poverty of modern life. Liam Rector, writing for the Hudson Review, has noted that the author’s work 'has about it a purity, an originality unmatched by many of his contemporaries.' Though Simic’s popularity and profile may have increased dramatically over the two decades, his work has always enjoyed critical praise. In the Chicago Review, Victor Contoski characterized Simic’s work as 'some of the most strikingly original poetry of our time, a poetry shockingly stark in its concepts, imagery, and language.' Georgia Review correspondent Peter Stitt wrote: 'The fact that [Simic] spent his first eleven years surviving World War II as a resident of Eastern Europe makes him a going-away-from-home writer in an especially profound way...He is one of the wisest poets of his generation, and one of the best.'

"Simic spent his formative years in Belgrade. His early childhood coincided with World War II and his family was forced to evacuate their home several times to escape indiscriminate bombing; as he has put it, 'My travel agents were Hitler and Stalin.' The atmosphere of violence and desperation continued after the war. Simic’s father left the country for work in Italy, and his mother tried several times to follow, only to be turned back by authorities. When Simic was fifteen, his mother finally arranged for the family to travel to Paris. After a year, Simic sailed for America and a reunion with his father. The family moved to Chicago, where Simic attended high school and began to take a serious interest in poetry—though he admits that one reason he began exploring the art form was to meet girls."

Read the remainder of the above biography of Simic at this page.

For more information about Simic click on this.

You can watch him on YouTube reading a selection of his poems at Cornell (his reading begins at 7:30), at the Griffin Poetry Prize, and three poems at the Dodge Poetry Festival. All are closed captioned.

Read this informative interview with Simic. It ran in The Atlantic, May 6, 2015. It's called "Writers Should Look for What Others Don't See" and part of a series where writers talk about literature. Simic talks fondly of a poem, "A Sight in Camp," by Walt Whitman. Here's what he had to say about Whitman's poem: "It’s just so matter-of-fact. There is not an extra word. Everything is completely pared down to the essentials. The whole thing is so understandable, vivid, poignant, troubling." Simic sounds like a man who loves to read. Click here to see more of what Simic has to say.

Simic was also interviewed by Granta for their August 5, 2013. In it he says, "A brief poem intended to capture the imagination of the reader requires endless tinkering to get all its parts right."

Simic loves Buster Keaton. He wrote and engaging essay about the filmmaker and comic actor. Not familiar with Buster Keaton? Watch this to see him in (silent) action.

"My travel agents were Hitler and Stalin."

from his interview with the Cortland Review 

 Charles Simic's Yugoslav passport
Belgrade, where Simic was born, was the capital of Yugoslavia from 1918-2006. When Yugoslavia was dissolved in 2006, Belgrade became the capital of Serbia.