Charles Simic
Charles Simic
Charles Simicis a Serbian-American poet and was co-poetry editor of the Paris Review. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for The World Doesn't End, and was a finalist of the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for Selected Poems, 1963-1983 and in 1987 for Unending Blues. He was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2007...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 May 1938
CityBelgrade, Serbia
CountryUnited States of America
If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the soul. Awe is my religion, and mystery is its church.
The world is beautiful but not sayable. That's why we need art.
Poetry: three mismatched shoes at the entrance of a dark alley.
The highest levels of consciousness are wordless.
The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny spec surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then-poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that is very, very funny.
One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.
The secret wish of poetry is to stop time.
Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.
Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.
A poem is an invitation to a voyage. As in life, we travel to see fresh sights.
There’s no preparation for poetry.
Poetry is an orphan of silence.
A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism participates.
Roberto Calasso's survey of the renewed interest in myth demonstrates how decisive the gods' influence was on modern literature. Calasso is not only immensely learned; he is one of the most original thinkers and writers we have today.