Charles Simic - Life, Bibliography

Poet, born in Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro (former Yugoslavia). His father escaped from the violence of World War 2 to New York City, and his family followed him in 1954. Charles studied at New York University (1967 BA), and became an editorial assistant for Aperture, a photography magazine (1966–9). He taught at several institutions, notably the University of New Hampshire (1974). He is praised for his translations of the Yugoslavian poets, and for his own evocative and often surrealistic poetry, as in The Book of Gods and Devils (1990). Selected Poems 1963–2001 (2004), draws on 14 collections published since 1971.

Having emigrated in his youth from wartorn Eastern Europe, Simic represents an interesting counterpoint to many North American contemporaries, so many of whom have evolved from the traditions of American mysticism growing out of Emerson, Dickinson, and Whitman.

Over the years, Charles Simic has honed his poetic style to such a degree that, today, a Charles Simic poem is considered immediately recognizable, perhaps more so than any other poet writing today.

Over the past decades Simic has been awarded the Macarthur "Genius" Grant, a Pulitzer Prize, and innumerable other awards.

Simic is one of the judges for the 2007 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Life

Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, (now Serbia) his childhood was sufficiently traumatic, as Nazi and Allied bombers ravaged his homeland during World War II. Simic first started to write poetry in high school, when he realized "that one of my friends was attracting the best-looking girls by writing them sappy love poems".

Since that time, Simic has written prolifically, producing over 60 books which were published internationally. In 1973, Simic moved to New Hampshire, where he is now a professor of English at the University of New Hampshire. In 1990, Simic won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his collection The World Doesn't End: Prose Poems. Simic was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995, which can be considered the highest formal recognition of artistic merit in the United States.

Bibliography

What the Grass Says - 1967 Unending Blues - 1986 The World Doesn't End: Prose Poems - 1990 (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) Hotel Insomnia 1992 Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell - 1993 A Wedding in Hell - 1994 Walking the Black Cat - 1996 (National Book Award in Poetry finalist) Jackstraws - 1999 (New York Times Notable Book of the Year) The Book of Gods and Devils - 2000 Night Picnic: Poems - 2001 The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems - 2003 Selected Poems: 1963-2003 - 2004 (winner of the 2005 International Griffin Poetry Prize) My Noiseless Entourage : Poems - 2005