Today we pay tribute to Charles Simic, who passed away on January 9th at the age of 84. Born in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Simic was displaced by the Second World War, eventually settling in the US in the mid-1950s. From tumultuous beginnings, he'd rise to a place of prominence in international poetics, eventually garnering honors including a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Frost Medal, the Wallace Stevens Award, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also served as the fifteenth US Poet Laureate, succeeding Donald Hall in 2007.
Writing in The New York Times, Dwight Garner observes that "[Simic's] poems defied simple classification. Some were minimalist and surreal, others determinedly realistic and violent. Nearly all were replete with ironic humor and startling metaphors." He goes on to quote an earlier Times piece by D.J.R. Bruckner: "Only a very foolhardy critic would say what any Simic poem is about," he begins, continuing,
"In rich detail they are all filled with ordinary objects, but they tend to leave the impression that the poet has poked a hole into everyday life to reveal a glimpse of something endless." Garner also takes note of Simic's unique voice and minimalist perspective, quoting the poet:
Before the Army I had become too literary, buttoned down, in tweeds, pipe-smoking, all that. After the Army I had a much humbler view of myself. I started thinking about a remark of the painter Paul Klee, that if a young man is to accomplish something he has to find something truly his own. Well, I had a kind of minimalist urge, and so I started writing poems about the simplest things. Household objects: a knife, a fork, a spoon, my shoes.
While our PennSound author page for Simic doesn't contain many recordings, we are nevertheless very grateful to be able to share what we have. That includes the poet's 2008 appearance on episode #186 of Leonard Schwartz's Cross Cultural Poetics radio program, where he discusses subversion and Sappho in his book of essays The Renegade. We also have a trio of poems — "The White Room," "Mirrors at 4 a.m.," and "The Friends of Heraclitus" — from his 2003 appearance at the Key West Literary Seminar. To listen to either of these recordings, click here.
