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The Book of Gods and Devils
Loneliness, loss, sadness, and mystery mark this wonderful volume of forty-nine poems by Charles Simic, winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and praised as “one of the truly imaginative writers of our time� by the Los Angeles Times.
70 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
14 people are currently reading
330 people want to read
About the author
Charles Simic
235Ìýbooks465ÌýfollowersU.S. Poet Laureate, 2007-2008
Dušan Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, on May 9, 1938. Simic’s childhood was complicated by the events of World War II. He moved to Paris with his mother when he was 15; a year later, they joined his father in New York and then moved to Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, where he graduated from the same high school as Ernest Hemingway. Simic attended the University of Chicago, working nights in an office at the Chicago Sun Times, but was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961 and served until 1963.
Simic is the author of more than 30 poetry collections, including The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems (1989), which received the Pulitzer Prize; Jackstraws (1999); Selected Poems: 1963-2003 (2004), which received the International Griffin Poetry Prize; and Scribbled in the Dark (2017). He is also an essayist, translator, editor, and professor emeritus of creative writing and literature at the University of New Hampshire, where he taught for over 30 years.
Simic has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His other honors and awards include the Frost Medal, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the PEN Translation Prize. He served as the 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, and was elected as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2001. Simic has also been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Dušan Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, on May 9, 1938. Simic’s childhood was complicated by the events of World War II. He moved to Paris with his mother when he was 15; a year later, they joined his father in New York and then moved to Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, where he graduated from the same high school as Ernest Hemingway. Simic attended the University of Chicago, working nights in an office at the Chicago Sun Times, but was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961 and served until 1963.
Simic is the author of more than 30 poetry collections, including The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems (1989), which received the Pulitzer Prize; Jackstraws (1999); Selected Poems: 1963-2003 (2004), which received the International Griffin Poetry Prize; and Scribbled in the Dark (2017). He is also an essayist, translator, editor, and professor emeritus of creative writing and literature at the University of New Hampshire, where he taught for over 30 years.
Simic has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His other honors and awards include the Frost Medal, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the PEN Translation Prize. He served as the 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, and was elected as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2001. Simic has also been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
December 8, 2015
I wrote to Charles Simic this past winter. Like a total stalker, I followed a trail of breadcrumbs that lead me to his university email address. Having had a few drinks by this time, I shrugged off anxiety and wrote to him. I told of a time when a volume of his poetry played a critical role in a very sentimental moment of my life, one that had a short-lived but important resonance. Much to my surprise and joy, he responded only a day later. His email was short and minimalist, but shared a personal story that read as if perpendicular to my own, which was quite touching that he had taken the time to respond and also to swap stories with me as f I were a familiar. Like an awestruck child, I had concluded my own email with a query into his favorite poems to read aloud, to which Mr. Simic responded in favor of his poem Shelley¹. The poem is indeed wonderful, especially when read aloud. The Book of Gods and Devils is the rightfully published home for said poem, and is a charming little volume as a whole. Several greats�In the Library also worth special mention—are contained within and showcases a mid-career Simic with a proud and confident voice picking away at the marble towards the fine details of his poetic self-sculpture. Here is the poem Simic selected:
Shelley
Poet of the dead leaves driven like ghosts,
Driven like pestilence-stricken multitudes,
I read you first
One rainy evening in New York City,
In my atrocious Slavic accent,
Saying the mellifluous verses
From a battered, much-stained volume
I had bought earlier that day
In a second-hand bookstore on Fourth Avenue
Run by an initiate of the occult masters.
The little money I had being almost spent,
I walked the streets my nose in the book.
I sat in a dingy coffee shop
With last summer’s dead flies on the table.
The owner was an ex-sailor
Who had grown a huge hump on his back
While watching the rain, the empty street.
He was glad to have me sit and read.
He’d refill my cup with a liquid dark as river Styx.
Shelley spoke of a mad, blind, dying king;
Of rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know;
Of graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.
I too felt like a glorious phantom
Going to have my dinner
In a Chinese restaurant I knew so well.
It had a three-fingered waiter
Who’d bring my soup and rice each night
Without ever saying a word.
I never saw anyone else there.
The kitchen was separated by a curtain
Of glass beads which clicked faintly
Whenever the front door opened.
The front door opened that evening
To admit a pale little girl with glasses.
The poet spoke of the everlasting universe
Of things � of gleams of a remoter world
Which visit the soul in sleep �
Of a desert peopled by storms alone �
The streets were strewn with broken umbrellas
Which looked like funereal kites
This little Chinese girl might have made.
The bars on MacDougal Street were emptying.
There had been a fist fight.
A man leaned against a lamp post arms extended as if
crucified,
The rain washing the blood off his face.
In a dimly lit side street,
Where the sidewalk shone like a ballroom mirror
At closing time �
A well-dressed man without any shoes
Asked me for money.
His eyes shone, he looked triumphant
Like a fencing master
Who had just struck a mortal blow.
How strange it all was � The world’s raffle
That dark October night �
The yellowed volume of poetry
With its Splendors and Glooms
Which I studied by the light of storefronts:
Drugstores and barbershops,
Afraid of my small windowless room
Cold as a tomb of an infant emperor.
4/5
¹ A high-five to those of you whose minds skipped right to , who is often praises and analyzed in the essays of Simic, Virginia Woolf, Yeats and Mary Ruefle (Ruefle talks extensively about Shelley in her collected lectures, a volume that is indispensable to any would-be writer).
.
Shelley
Poet of the dead leaves driven like ghosts,
Driven like pestilence-stricken multitudes,
I read you first
One rainy evening in New York City,
In my atrocious Slavic accent,
Saying the mellifluous verses
From a battered, much-stained volume
I had bought earlier that day
In a second-hand bookstore on Fourth Avenue
Run by an initiate of the occult masters.
The little money I had being almost spent,
I walked the streets my nose in the book.
I sat in a dingy coffee shop
With last summer’s dead flies on the table.
The owner was an ex-sailor
Who had grown a huge hump on his back
While watching the rain, the empty street.
He was glad to have me sit and read.
He’d refill my cup with a liquid dark as river Styx.
Shelley spoke of a mad, blind, dying king;
Of rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know;
Of graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.
I too felt like a glorious phantom
Going to have my dinner
In a Chinese restaurant I knew so well.
It had a three-fingered waiter
Who’d bring my soup and rice each night
Without ever saying a word.
I never saw anyone else there.
The kitchen was separated by a curtain
Of glass beads which clicked faintly
Whenever the front door opened.
The front door opened that evening
To admit a pale little girl with glasses.
The poet spoke of the everlasting universe
Of things � of gleams of a remoter world
Which visit the soul in sleep �
Of a desert peopled by storms alone �
The streets were strewn with broken umbrellas
Which looked like funereal kites
This little Chinese girl might have made.
The bars on MacDougal Street were emptying.
There had been a fist fight.
A man leaned against a lamp post arms extended as if
crucified,
The rain washing the blood off his face.
In a dimly lit side street,
Where the sidewalk shone like a ballroom mirror
At closing time �
A well-dressed man without any shoes
Asked me for money.
His eyes shone, he looked triumphant
Like a fencing master
Who had just struck a mortal blow.
How strange it all was � The world’s raffle
That dark October night �
The yellowed volume of poetry
With its Splendors and Glooms
Which I studied by the light of storefronts:
Drugstores and barbershops,
Afraid of my small windowless room
Cold as a tomb of an infant emperor.
4/5
¹ A high-five to those of you whose minds skipped right to , who is often praises and analyzed in the essays of Simic, Virginia Woolf, Yeats and Mary Ruefle (Ruefle talks extensively about Shelley in her collected lectures, a volume that is indispensable to any would-be writer).
.
August 24, 2013
One of the most stunning poets..
reading this is like taking a voyage inside an amazing set of surrealistic paintings or short films.
Simic transcends all limitations to deliver his images..and to build a world where symbols and objects are some of many keys in understanding it or even just to feel it..
I absolutely love it..
Here are some passages I was so stunned by from the book:
"I left parts of myself everywhere,
The way absent-minded people leave
Gloves and umbrellas
Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck."
"Many other strange things came to pass.
Once a naked woman climbed on the chair
To reach the apple in the Cage.
I was on the floor watching her go on tiptoe.
Her hand fluttering in the cage like a bird.
On other days, the sun peeked through dusty windowpanes
To see what time it was. But there was no clock,
Only the knife in the cage, glinting like a mirror,
And the chair in the far corner
where someone once sat facing the brick wall. "
"The poet spoke of the everlasting universe
Of things... of gleams of a remoter world
which visit the soul in sleep...
Of a desert peopled by storms alone... "
"In that whole city you could hear a pin drop.
Believe me.
I thought I heard a pin drop and I went looking for it."
reading this is like taking a voyage inside an amazing set of surrealistic paintings or short films.
Simic transcends all limitations to deliver his images..and to build a world where symbols and objects are some of many keys in understanding it or even just to feel it..
I absolutely love it..
Here are some passages I was so stunned by from the book:
"I left parts of myself everywhere,
The way absent-minded people leave
Gloves and umbrellas
Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck."
"Many other strange things came to pass.
Once a naked woman climbed on the chair
To reach the apple in the Cage.
I was on the floor watching her go on tiptoe.
Her hand fluttering in the cage like a bird.
On other days, the sun peeked through dusty windowpanes
To see what time it was. But there was no clock,
Only the knife in the cage, glinting like a mirror,
And the chair in the far corner
where someone once sat facing the brick wall. "
"The poet spoke of the everlasting universe
Of things... of gleams of a remoter world
which visit the soul in sleep...
Of a desert peopled by storms alone... "
"In that whole city you could hear a pin drop.
Believe me.
I thought I heard a pin drop and I went looking for it."
March 7, 2015
One of our best poets at his best. Here is a famous example:
In the Library
for Octavio
There's a book called
A Dictionary of Angels.
No one had opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.
She's very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.
In the Library
for Octavio
There's a book called
A Dictionary of Angels.
No one had opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.
She's very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.
February 7, 2014
Short review...Charles Simic is one of my favorite poets. This wasn't my favorite of his collections. There were several gems like "The Little Pins of Memory," and "Shelley," but I was missing Simic's usual imaginative wordplay and fondness for the surprising image which characterize so many of his other collections.
August 27, 2017
I left parts of myself everywhere
The way absent-minded people leave
Gloves and umbrellas
Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck.
I was on a park bench asleep.
It was like the Art of Ancient Egypt.
I didn’t wish to bestir myself.
I made my long shadow take the evening train.
“We give death to a child when we give it a doll,�
Said the woman who had read Djuna Barnes.
We whispered all night. She had traveled to darkest Africa.
She had many stories to tell about the jungle.
I was already in New York looking for work.
It was raining as in the days of Noah.
I stood in many doorways of that great city.
Once I asked a man in a tuxedo for a cigarette.
He gave me a frightened look and stepped out into the rain.
Since “man naturally desires happiness�
According to St. Thomas Aquinas,
Who gave irrefutable proof of God’s existence and purpose,
I loaded trucks in the Garment Center.
A black man and I stole a woman’s red dress.
It was of silk; it shimmered.
Upon a gloomy night with all our loving ardors on fire,
We carried it down the long empty avenue,
Each holding one sleeve.
The heat was intolerable causing many terrifying human faces
To come out of hiding.
In the Public Library Reading Room
There was a single ceiling fan barely turning.
I had the travels of Herman Melville to serve me as a pillow.
I was on a ghost ship with its sails fully raised.
I could see no land anywhere.
The sea and its monsters could not cool me.
I followed a saintly looking nurse into a doctor’s office.
We edged past people with eyes and ears bandaged.
“I am a medieval philosopher in exile,�
I explained to my landlady that night.
And, truly, I no longer looked like myself.
I wore glasses with a nasty spider crack over one eye.
I stayed in the movies all day long.
A woman on the screen walked through a bombed city
Again and again. She wore army boots.
Her legs were long and bare. It was cold wherever she was.
She had her back turned to me, but I was in love with her.
I expected to find wartime Europe at the exit.
It wasn’t even snowing! Everyone I met
Wore a part of my destiny like a carnival mask.
“I’m Bartleby the Scrivener,� I told the Italian waiter.
“Me, too� he replied.
And I could see nothing but overflowing ashtrays
The human-faced flies were busy examining.
November 16, 2023
It is a great book.
July 26, 2016
I started this collection thinking "Please shut up Charles Simic," and somewhere along the line that became "Please teach me everything you know, Charles Simic."
Read
December 31, 2019“You're shivering, O my memory.
You went out early and without a coat
To visit your old schoolmasters,
The cruel schoolmasters and their pet monkeys.
You took a wrong turn somewhere.
You met an army of gray days,
A ghost army of years on the march.
It was the bread they fed you,
The kind it takes a lifetime to chew.
You found yourself again on that street
Inside that small, rented room
With its single dusty window.
Outside it was snowing quietly,
Snowing and snowing for days on end.
You were ill and in bed.
Everyone else had gone to work.
The blind old woman next door,
Whose sighs and heavy steps you'd welcome now
Had died mysteriously in the summer.
You had your own heartbeat to attend to. The chill made you pull the covers up to your chin.
You remembered the lost arctic voyagers,
The evening snow erasing their footprints.
You had no money and no job.
Both of your lungs were hurting; still,
You had no intention of lifting a finger
To help yourself. You were immortal!
Outside, the same dark snowflake
Seemed to-be falling over and over again.
You studied the cracked walls,
The maplike water stain on the ceiling,
Trying to fix in your mind its cities and rivers.
Time had stopped at dusk.
You were shivering at the thought
Of such great happiness�
•â¶Ä�
“There's a book called
"A Dictionary of Angels."
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled�
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.
She's very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does...
•â¶Ä¢â€�
“There was a child's Sunday suit
Pinned to a tailor's dummy
In a dusty store window.
The store looked closed for years.
I lost my way there once
In a Sunday kind of quiet,
Sunday kind of afternoon light
On a street of red-brick tenements.
How do you like that?
I said to no one.
How do you like that?
I said it again today upon waking.
That street went on forever
And all along I could feel the pins
In my back, prickling
The dark and heavy cloth
•â¶Ä¢â€¢â¶Ä�
“History practicing its scissor-clips
In the dark,
So everything comes out in the end
Missing an arm or a leg.
Still, if that's all you've got
To play with today...
This doll at least had a head,
And its lips were red!
Frame houses like grim exhibits
Lining the empty street
Where a little girl sat on the steps
In a flowered nightgown, talking to it.
It looked like a serious matter,
Even the rain wanted to hear about it,
So it fell on her eyelashes,
And made them glisten...
You went out early and without a coat
To visit your old schoolmasters,
The cruel schoolmasters and their pet monkeys.
You took a wrong turn somewhere.
You met an army of gray days,
A ghost army of years on the march.
It was the bread they fed you,
The kind it takes a lifetime to chew.
You found yourself again on that street
Inside that small, rented room
With its single dusty window.
Outside it was snowing quietly,
Snowing and snowing for days on end.
You were ill and in bed.
Everyone else had gone to work.
The blind old woman next door,
Whose sighs and heavy steps you'd welcome now
Had died mysteriously in the summer.
You had your own heartbeat to attend to. The chill made you pull the covers up to your chin.
You remembered the lost arctic voyagers,
The evening snow erasing their footprints.
You had no money and no job.
Both of your lungs were hurting; still,
You had no intention of lifting a finger
To help yourself. You were immortal!
Outside, the same dark snowflake
Seemed to-be falling over and over again.
You studied the cracked walls,
The maplike water stain on the ceiling,
Trying to fix in your mind its cities and rivers.
Time had stopped at dusk.
You were shivering at the thought
Of such great happiness�
•â¶Ä�
“There's a book called
"A Dictionary of Angels."
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled�
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.
She's very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does...
•â¶Ä¢â€�
“There was a child's Sunday suit
Pinned to a tailor's dummy
In a dusty store window.
The store looked closed for years.
I lost my way there once
In a Sunday kind of quiet,
Sunday kind of afternoon light
On a street of red-brick tenements.
How do you like that?
I said to no one.
How do you like that?
I said it again today upon waking.
That street went on forever
And all along I could feel the pins
In my back, prickling
The dark and heavy cloth
•â¶Ä¢â€¢â¶Ä�
“History practicing its scissor-clips
In the dark,
So everything comes out in the end
Missing an arm or a leg.
Still, if that's all you've got
To play with today...
This doll at least had a head,
And its lips were red!
Frame houses like grim exhibits
Lining the empty street
Where a little girl sat on the steps
In a flowered nightgown, talking to it.
It looked like a serious matter,
Even the rain wanted to hear about it,
So it fell on her eyelashes,
And made them glisten...
June 1, 2017
Simic has a style one has to admire. His poems are simple, most of them with a narrative. They are rooted in his experiences, which are simply recounted: memories of war, loss, loneliness, etc. My appreciation for his simplicity is heightened given that I'm reading John Ashbery concurrently with this. I'd recommend this to anyone.
Simic has this strange way of presenting a simple image which suggests a much deeper and emotive mystery: here are some examples.
From "With Eyes Veiled"
The blue and gold Madonna in the window
Smiles with her secret knowledge
Exotic rings on her fat fingers
A black stain where her child used to be
From "Childhood Story"
He sat in a lion-footed chair with a sheet over his head
As if waiting for movers. The roads out of town
Were packed with sleepwalkers dressed as soldiers.
They must not be wakened, you were warned.
From "The World"
I have an incalculable number of leaves
Not one of which is moving.
It’s because we are enchanted, I think.
We don’t have a care in the world.
From“The Window�
One thinks of love potions
Carefully concocted
Unrequited passion from which
Great hatred is born
Personal highlights:
"The Little Pins of Memory"
"St. Thomas Aquinas"
"A Letter"
"Two Dogs"
"The Immortal"
And More!
Simic has this strange way of presenting a simple image which suggests a much deeper and emotive mystery: here are some examples.
From "With Eyes Veiled"
The blue and gold Madonna in the window
Smiles with her secret knowledge
Exotic rings on her fat fingers
A black stain where her child used to be
From "Childhood Story"
He sat in a lion-footed chair with a sheet over his head
As if waiting for movers. The roads out of town
Were packed with sleepwalkers dressed as soldiers.
They must not be wakened, you were warned.
From "The World"
I have an incalculable number of leaves
Not one of which is moving.
It’s because we are enchanted, I think.
We don’t have a care in the world.
From“The Window�
One thinks of love potions
Carefully concocted
Unrequited passion from which
Great hatred is born
Personal highlights:
"The Little Pins of Memory"
"St. Thomas Aquinas"
"A Letter"
"Two Dogs"
"The Immortal"
And More!
February 16, 2025
I was watching a spider on the ceiling.
It was the kind St. Veronica ate in her martyrdom.
"That woman subsisted on spiders only,"
I told the janior when he came to fix the faucet.
He wore dirty overalls and a derby hat.
One had been an inmate of a notorious state institution.
"I'm no longer Jesus," he informed us happily.
He believed only in devils now.
--"The Devils"
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
-- "In the Library"God's refuted but the devil's not.
-- "The Scarecrow"
February 10, 2019
He took hold of my hand with:
"I lost my way there once
In a Sunday kind of quiet"
Then held it the whole way through.
(Well, mostly. We parted a few times, but I'm ok with that.)
I've lost my way to so many places.
"I lost my way there once
In a Sunday kind of quiet"
Then held it the whole way through.
(Well, mostly. We parted a few times, but I'm ok with that.)
I've lost my way to so many places.
July 20, 2019
BUEN LIBRO
Buen libro aunque a veces difÃcil por sus sobretonos metafÃsicos. La obra de un maestro. Simic es junto a Mark Strand uno de los poetas más sobresalientes de la segunda mitad del siglo XX norteamericano.
Buen libro aunque a veces difÃcil por sus sobretonos metafÃsicos. La obra de un maestro. Simic es junto a Mark Strand uno de los poetas más sobresalientes de la segunda mitad del siglo XX norteamericano.
November 28, 2019
Willfully obscure.
March 13, 2017
A genius work from a genius writer - amazing poems.
November 24, 2024
4.5
I had forgotten that I had read this collection of poems before, but upon revisiting it, I was struck anew by its emotional resonance. Once again, I found myself deeply drawn to the poem "St. Thomas Aquinas," which continues to stand out as a powerful piece. Yet, this small collection offers much more, containing numerous poems that deliver vivid, stunning imagery capable of stopping readers in their tracks. These works resonate as profound cries—pleas for others to witness and understand the pain of existence, giving them an urgency that lingers.
Simic’s poetry often evokes a dreamlike nostalgia, employing recurring images of urban landscapes, the devastation of war, fleeting moments of human connection, and the weight of profound silences. Through these motifs, he explores the alienation and loneliness that permeate the human condition, drawing readers into a reflective and deeply introspective space. His ability to weave these themes together with a quiet intensity is nothing short of masterful.
What I particularly appreciate is the narrative quality that many of his poems adopt. These aren’t simply meditative musings; they unfold like brief stories that expand into moments of profound insight and contemplation. Simic skillfully moves beyond the familiar, transforming everyday scenes into something almost transcendental. This balance between narrative accessibility and philosophical depth is one of the collection’s greatest strengths.
Another striking quality is the sense of rootlessness and displacement that runs through these poems. Even when they reference specific places, the locations feel unmoored, existing more as memories or impressions than as concrete settings. This no-place feeling amplifies the universality of his themes, allowing readers to connect with the poems on an intimate and personal level.
Overall, this collection reaffirms why Simic is such a vital voice in contemporary poetry. Through his haunting images and poignant meditations, he captures the fragility of human existence with startling clarity. This is a work to return to time and again, as its depths and nuances reveal themselves with each reading.
Review from 23 January 2016: Some of the most beautiful poems I read in a long time. "St. Thomas Aquinas" may be my favorite one.
I had forgotten that I had read this collection of poems before, but upon revisiting it, I was struck anew by its emotional resonance. Once again, I found myself deeply drawn to the poem "St. Thomas Aquinas," which continues to stand out as a powerful piece. Yet, this small collection offers much more, containing numerous poems that deliver vivid, stunning imagery capable of stopping readers in their tracks. These works resonate as profound cries—pleas for others to witness and understand the pain of existence, giving them an urgency that lingers.
Simic’s poetry often evokes a dreamlike nostalgia, employing recurring images of urban landscapes, the devastation of war, fleeting moments of human connection, and the weight of profound silences. Through these motifs, he explores the alienation and loneliness that permeate the human condition, drawing readers into a reflective and deeply introspective space. His ability to weave these themes together with a quiet intensity is nothing short of masterful.
What I particularly appreciate is the narrative quality that many of his poems adopt. These aren’t simply meditative musings; they unfold like brief stories that expand into moments of profound insight and contemplation. Simic skillfully moves beyond the familiar, transforming everyday scenes into something almost transcendental. This balance between narrative accessibility and philosophical depth is one of the collection’s greatest strengths.
Another striking quality is the sense of rootlessness and displacement that runs through these poems. Even when they reference specific places, the locations feel unmoored, existing more as memories or impressions than as concrete settings. This no-place feeling amplifies the universality of his themes, allowing readers to connect with the poems on an intimate and personal level.
Overall, this collection reaffirms why Simic is such a vital voice in contemporary poetry. Through his haunting images and poignant meditations, he captures the fragility of human existence with startling clarity. This is a work to return to time and again, as its depths and nuances reveal themselves with each reading.
Review from 23 January 2016: Some of the most beautiful poems I read in a long time. "St. Thomas Aquinas" may be my favorite one.
April 8, 2011
This collection of poems are short snippets of observations and imagination.
Simic blends the line between characters and himself with few smoothly-chosen words. These poems are a fast read if you're not picking them apart for some reason or other. When I read poetry, I simply want to experience it-the word choices, the tempo, the mood, the scene-that's what I want. I'm sure there is much more to Simic's poetry than I can see, or want to see. I just read it and enjoy it.
Here's one of the poems featured in this collection.
In the Library
by Charles Simic
for Octavio
There's a book called
"A Dictionary of Angels."
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.
She's very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.
Simic blends the line between characters and himself with few smoothly-chosen words. These poems are a fast read if you're not picking them apart for some reason or other. When I read poetry, I simply want to experience it-the word choices, the tempo, the mood, the scene-that's what I want. I'm sure there is much more to Simic's poetry than I can see, or want to see. I just read it and enjoy it.
Here's one of the poems featured in this collection.
In the Library
by Charles Simic
for Octavio
There's a book called
"A Dictionary of Angels."
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.
She's very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.
January 20, 2008
Charles Simic, The Book of Gods and Devils (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990)
Another fine piece of work from Mr. Simic, but this one seems the smallest of cuts below his best efforts (The World Doesn't End, Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk, et al). Hard to explain why this is; I want to say it's more in the confessional mode than most of his work, but if this is the case, it's by an infinitesimal amount and would not otherwise be worth noting. Problem is, I can't put my finger on anything else.
Still, when Simic is in the zone, his writing eclipses most others who have worked in the medium in the twentieth century. Take, for example, pieces from the brilliant "The Great War":
"...You never saw anything as beautiful
As those clay regiments; I used to lie on the floor
For hours, staring them in the eyes.
I remember them staring back at me in wonder.
How strange they must have felt
Standing stiffly at attention
Before a large, incomprehending creature
With a moustache made of milk...."
Definitely another worthwhile contribution to the canon, but there are better places for the neophyte to begin. ****
Another fine piece of work from Mr. Simic, but this one seems the smallest of cuts below his best efforts (The World Doesn't End, Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk, et al). Hard to explain why this is; I want to say it's more in the confessional mode than most of his work, but if this is the case, it's by an infinitesimal amount and would not otherwise be worth noting. Problem is, I can't put my finger on anything else.
Still, when Simic is in the zone, his writing eclipses most others who have worked in the medium in the twentieth century. Take, for example, pieces from the brilliant "The Great War":
"...You never saw anything as beautiful
As those clay regiments; I used to lie on the floor
For hours, staring them in the eyes.
I remember them staring back at me in wonder.
How strange they must have felt
Standing stiffly at attention
Before a large, incomprehending creature
With a moustache made of milk...."
Definitely another worthwhile contribution to the canon, but there are better places for the neophyte to begin. ****
June 8, 2015
Another powerful collection. Part Three is a must read. Especially the poem titled "Paradise".
-St. Thomas Aquinas
-Factory
- Frightening Toys
-With Eyes Veiled
-The Initiate
- Paradise
-In The Library
-St. Thomas Aquinas
-Factory
- Frightening Toys
-With Eyes Veiled
-The Initiate
- Paradise
-In The Library
July 27, 2007
Good. Very subtle surrealism.
November 28, 2007
This book is worth it if only for the last poem, "Cabbages"
June 20, 2008
Some really nice, less abstract / surreal stories and poignant moments here. Read it kids, you'll like it.
November 24, 2022
Charles Simic never fails to bring out the weirdness of anything ordinary or complex. his references to popular expressions and jargon end up hilarious in the slant Simic creates
November 17, 2013
Abrupt poetry.
September 22, 2014
Love the idea that this is all theater and the trees are always on stage.
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