Charles Simic

Charles Simic , 1938-, American poet, b. Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Simic moved to the United States in 1954, joining his father, who had arrived before World War II. Simic studied at New York Univ. (B.A., 1966) and taught at several colleges, most notably from 1974 at the Univ. of New Hampshire, where he is now a professor emeritus. Simic has written more than 60 books, including the poetry collections What the Grass Says (1960), Charon's Cosmology (1977), Unending Blues (1986), The World Doesn't End (1990, Pulitzer Prize), Walking the Black Cat (1996), Jackstraws (1999), The Voice at 3:00 AM (2003), My Noiseless Entourage (2005), and That Little Something (2008). His poetry is stark and startlingly original, with touches of ironic humor; his language is plainspoken and accessible, although his imagery is often dark and sometimes bizarre. He also is celebrated for his translations of Yugoslav and French poets and has written many essays and edited several anthologies. A former MacArthur fellow (1984-89), Simic was named U.S. poet laureate in 2007.

Bibliography: See his collected memoirs, A Fly in the Soup (2003); M. Hulse, Charles Simic in Conversation with Michael Hulse (2002); B. Weigl, ed., Charles Simic: Essays on the Poetry (1996).

Simic, Charles (1938– ),poet. Born in what was Yugoslavia of Serbian parents, he settled with his family in Chicago in 1954 and began writing poetry in English while in high school. After education at the University of Chicago as well as at New York University, and service in the army, Simic published his first collection of poems, What the Grass Says (1967). Selected Poems 1963–1983 was published in 1985. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim and a MacArthur award. Later poems appear in Unending Blues (1986), The Book of Gods and Devils (1990), and Hotel Insomnia (1993). The World Doesn't End (1989), prose poems, won a Pulitzer Prize. Simic's poems are short, mixing realism with surrealism, and sometimes myth.