Simic, Charles 2001
My touch is on the highest mast.
It cries at four in the morning
For a lantern to be lit
On the rim of the world.
– Charles Simic, “The Body”
Listen to Charles Simic’s 2001 reading for the Poetry Center of Chicago:
Vintage poster of Russell Edson and Charles Simic giving a joint reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago.
They want to hear something heroic and poetic, and I tell them that I was just another high school kid who wrote poems in order to impress girls, but with no ambition beyond that.
– Charles Simic, “Why I Still Write Poetry”
Read this interview with Charles Simic from the Paris Review:
The Art of Poetry No. 90
Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, on May 9, 1938. His early childhood was, inevitably, dominated by the Nazi invasion, and some of his most powerful poems derive from memories of this period. In “Two Dogs,” for instance, he recalls watching the Germans march past hi…
Watch Charles Simic read some of his work:
