August 2, 2007 -- Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has announced the appointment of Charles Simic to be the Library’s 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Simic will take up his duties in the fall, opening the Library’s annual literary series on Oct. 17 with a reading of his work. He also will be a featured speaker at the Library of Congress National Book Festival in the Poetry pavilion on Saturday, Sept. 29, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. --LOC (Photo: Richard Drew/AP) "Charles Simic was born on May 9, 1938, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where he had a traumatic childhood during World War II. In 1954 he emigrated from Yugoslavia with his mother and brother to join his father in the United States. They lived in and around Chicago until 1958.Other Resources:His first poems were published in 1959, when he was twenty-one. In 1961 he was drafted into the U.S. Army, and in 1966 he earned his Bachelor's degree from New York University while working at night to cover the costs of tuition.
His first full-length collection of poems, What the Grass Says, was published the following year. Since then he has published more than sixty books in the U.S. and abroad, twenty titles of his own poetry among them.
. . .Simic was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 2007. About the appointment, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said, "The range of Charles Simic's imagination is evident in his stunning and unusual imagery. He handles language with the skill of a master craftsman, yet his poems are easily accessible, often meditative and surprising. He has given us a rich body of highly organized poetry with shades of darkness and flashes of ironic humor."
"I am especially touched and honored to be selected because I am an immigrant boy who didn't speak English until I was 15," responded Simic after being named Poet Laureate."
Poems:
Country Fair
Eyes Fastened With Pins
Late September
Pigeons at Dawn
Read Your Fate
The Initiate
The Something
The White Room
This Morning
Watermelons
audio also available at site
Poems
"I am the last . . ."
From The World Doesn’t End
Against Whatever It Is That’s Encroaching
Autumn Sky
Cameo Appearance
Charon’s Cosmology
Clouds Gathering
Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites
Empire of Dreams
Eyes Fastened with Pins
Factory
Fork
My Shoes
October Arriving
Old Couple
Past-Lives Therapy
Prodigy
Tapestry
The Old World
The Wooden Toy
Watch Repair
audio also available at site
- Charles Simic, Surrealist With Dark View, Is Named Poet Laureate (New York Times 08.02.07) Includes links to additional articles, reviews, biography and poems.
- Charles Simic named US Poet Laureate (The Guardian, 08.02.07) Includes "Paradise Motel."
"This is what Cornell is after, too. How to construct a vehicle of reverie, an object that would enrich the imagination of the viewer and keep him company forever. "
---Charles Simic "The Truth of Poetry" Dime-Store Alchemy
my signed, first paperback editionof Simic's Dime-Store Alchemy
(note: it's rather beat up but its not for
sale and its value can't be measured)
1 comments:
Good you shared this poet i enjoyed reading. :)
missy
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