The Voice At 3:00 A.m.: Selected Late and New Poems – A National Book Award Nominee's Brilliant Imagery and Sardonic Wit

by Charles Simic

Charles Simic has been widely celebrated for his brilliant poetic imagery; his social, political, and moral alertness; his uncanny ability to make the ordinary extraordinary; and not least, the sardonic humor all his own. Gathering much of his material from the seemingly mundane minutiae of contemporary American culture, Simic matches meditations on spiritual concerns and the weight of history with a nimble wit, shifting effortlessly to moments of clear vision and intense poetic revelation.

Chosen as one of the New York Library's 25 Books to Remember for 2003, The Voice at 3:00 A. M. was also nominated for a National Book Award. The recipient of many prizes, Simic most recently received Canada's Griffin Prize. The poems in this collection--spanning two decades of his work--present a rich and varied survey of a remarkable lyrical journey.

In the Street
Beauty, dark goddess,
We met and parted
As though we parted not.
Like two stopped watches
In a dusty store window,
One golden morning of time.

Genres: Poetry, Read For School, Adult, School

193 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

U.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.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 5 out of 5]

'A poem is like a bank robbery: the idea is to get in, get their attention, get the money and get out.' - c.simic

LABOR AND CAPITAL
The softness of this hotel bed
On which we made love
Demonstrates to me in an impressive manner
The superiority of capitalism.

At the mattress factory I imagine,
The employees are happy today.
It's Sunday and they are working
Extra hours, like us, for no pay.

Still, the way you open your legs
and reach for me with your hand
Makes me think of the Revolution,
Red banners, crowds charging.

Someone stepping on the soapbox
As flames engulf the palace,
And the old prince in full view,
Steps to his death from a balcony.

Charles Simic is a long time favorite and probably the biggest influence on my own works as a poet. A fantastic 'selected works', primarily drawing on his later works (early, brilliant, poems like his infamous poem about silverware are neglected) and includes many of my favorites. Simic has a gift for juxtaposing the mundane with the comical, and often darkly comical, while dredging up his yellowing memories to create a portrait of timeless importance. The way his spins metaphors is awe-inspiring; Simic takes an idea and runs it through a series of loops and twists like an airshow pilot to deliver the reader into a metaphysical realm of language that will leave you gasping for breath and checking your seatbelt harness. I discovered him in my darkest hours, and he was a torch that saw me through the labyrinthian caverns to a new world of light, love and happiness. He reads like a whimsical Borges of the noir, and clutches your soul with tender, loving care. Definitely check out some Simic.
5/5

MIRRORS AT 4a.m.

You must come to them sideways
In rooms webbed in shadow,
Sneak a view of their emptiness
Without them catching
A glimpse of you in return.

The secret is,
Even the empty bed is a burden to them,
A pretense.
They are more themselves keeping
The company of a blank wall,
The company of time and eternity

Which, begging your pardon,
Cast no image
As they admire themselves in the mirror,
While you stand to the side
Pulling a hanky out
To wipe your brow surreptitiously.

Hear Simic read.

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, finishing this on the weekend when Congress plays with our clocks again (grr). Somewhere, around 3 a.m. when Charles Simic is up fighting insomnia, we will have lost an hour tomorrow. What a waste of a perfectly good hour!

I don't know why I've been reading so much Simic lately, but I have. As this is a "Selected Late and New Poems," it's sure I've read some of these poems before, too, but ask me if I could pick them out of a police line-up.

The "Late" poems come from books dating back to 1986. They are, in order, Unending Blues, The Book of Gods and Devils, Hotel Insomnia, A Wedding in Hell, Walking the Black Cat, and Jackstraws.

If you want to sample Simic, this is your ticket, as it is the "best of" these books by the author's say-so. Plus you get some "New Poems," as is the habit when writers put out collected works.

If you're curious, I shared one of the "New Poems" on a post dedicated to this book down this rabbit hole. It's about one of Simic's favorite topics: Dr. Death.

Cheers, then!

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never understood the appeal of Selected Poetry or Stories collections, especially when an author releases multiple a la Bradbury and Harlan Ellison. The acceptable approach seems to be: Take your favorite ten poems from your favorite five previously published collections and slap on five new poems to justify the publication.

A pet peeve of most bibliomaniacs, I imagine, is having the same pieces across multiple editions. Like when Vandermeer re-anthologized certain weird stories across multiple weird anthologies. Or when you realize all 100 Harlan Ellison books are just scrambled permutations of the same 100 stories in deceptive combinations. The randomness is counterproductive and maddening.

When will Library of America release a Complete Charles Simic? Add to that a Complete Billy Collins. Instead we are forced to abuse our librarians, demanding dozens of tiny compilations, creating immense flow charts of various versions of miniscule works and tables of contents, collating, scouring, amassing, and finally, in the end, giving up.

Simic remains a kinetically rhythmic synthesizer of modern ennui.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This minimalistic cover and THAT title spoke to me on a subconscious level. This was my first acquaintance with Charles Simic and it was exquisite.

The voice at 3 a.m., is a collection of selected poems that reads like a stream of uncensored and honest thoughts after midnight. Those midnight thoughts that are nothing but at the same time everything. Charles Simic's ability to spin the metaphors beautifully, using darkness mixed with irony, humour, eroticism, romanticism and finally surrealism is magnificent. His writing is eclectic and he portraits the haunting evilness that possesses the world with honesty and intertextuality to great authors and philosophers throughout the history.

Almost every poem worked for me and it made me question why did it take me so long to find this amazing writer. I marked so many pages, there was really no point in marking anymore. I found something that I liked in every poem. I feel in love with certain sentences that were so beautifully put together I had to read and re-read them. His poems are imaginative and they make everyday mundane feel extraordinary. I realize that I'm gushing all over this brilliant writer. Just go read some of his poems!

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know. Maybe even 3 1/2 stars, and I realize this puts me in a distinct minority. The problem with Simic, at least for me, is that he doesn't wear well in a collection this long. This particularly collection is probably the length of 3 or 4 normal collections. I found, after about the half way point, that the whole surreal mix & match, with a killer curve ball as an end line, seemed like a formula. Once I felt this, the poems kind of blurred together, their individual distinctness for the most part lost.

[Krzysztof · Rating 4 out of 5]

He deals in the sense of Heraclitus not being able to step into the same river twice. And of no man being an island and of all men being islands. And of any number of koans extolling the value of the present moment. Then back again to a twig brushing past Heraclitus's ankle, caught in the steady flow and getting harder to fix in the distance or in the mind's eye as eyesight and mind fail in perceptible gradations. And of there being nothing new under the sun.

So if you can quote these things, why rework any of them? Because we've still got to work them out for ourselves if we're - as Simic says in "The Lives of Alchemists" - "[to transmute] a figment of time into eternity." We want to be able to smile when we hear a heretofore unknown quote of a sage and say, "Though you spoke that before I was born, I felt it first or at the same time." We want someone to speak to us in the moments immediately following our speaking to ourselves.

I, too, have the habit of looking up at lit windows in the middle of the night and wondering who goes there and what through them. A Simic poem? An aphorism from Bartlett's that they would have sworn was theirs, but which you know is really yours?


Though not every poem worked for me, enough did. I give this 4-stars because:

"An altar dignifying the god of chance.
What is beautiful, it cautions,
Is found accidentally and not sought after.
What is beautiful is easily lost."

I prefer to read this with an emphasis on "after", as in "afterwards". I need to remember to check in on Simic again and on those poems that didn't work for me this time.

[hh · Rating 2 out of 5]

i wanted to like these poems more than i did. i knew simic more for his translation work than his own, and the poems in this collection didn't quite do it for me. i didn't dislike any, and liked some, such as "The Lives of the Alchemists" and "Late September" and "My Father Attributed Immortality to Waiters." his palette just isn't to my taste: the christian images seem flat and something about the use and use and reuse of figures of the homeless and of beggars strikes me as more touristy than genuine. i don't get a sense of what these peoples lives are like, they're just scenery, shorthand. taken individually, many of his lines seemed hum-drum, which maybe is deliberate, but i needed something to galvanize me. i might get more out of his work after several readings, but a first go-through was only so-so for me.

[Holly (The GrimDragon) · Rating 4 out of 5]

No sooner have we made love
Than we are back in the kitchen.
While I chop the hot peppers,
She wiggles her ass
And stirs the shrimp on the stove.

How good the wine tastes
That has run red
Out of a laughing mouth!
Down her chin
And onto her naked tits.

Surreal & sensual. Dark & nostalgic. This was my third Simic. It gave a nice overview of a large span of his work, although it may have been just a touch too long for this collection. He started to lose me a bit towards the end. However, there was a selection of poems that will be forever on my favorites! The main ones that come to mind are all from A Wedding in Hell, which I obviously have to read now. They flow so well into each other, which I adore.

Favorites: Romantic Landscape, Leaves, Transport & Crazy About Her Shrimp.

[hope h. · Rating 4 out of 5]

finally digging into more simic, and i definitely am liking his earlier work significantly more than what i was seeing in Come Closer and Listen: New Poems. while i enjoyed that one, this selection was a really good showcase of the breadth of his work and had a lot more staying power. not always my style, but a solid read with some REALLY standout poems that i will be thinking about for a long while.

sunday papers

the butchery of the innocent
never stops. that's about all
we can ever be sure of, love,
even than the roast
you are bringing out of the oven.

it's sunday. the congregation
files slowly out of the church
across the street. a good many
carry bibles in their hands.
it's the vague desire for truth
and the mighty fear of it
that makes them turn up
despite the glorious spring weather.

in the hallway, the old mutt
just now had the honesty
to growl at his own image in the mirror,
before lumbering off to the kitchen
where the lamb roast sat
in your outstretched hands
smelling of garlic and rosemary.


in the library

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.


reading history

at times, reading here
in the library,
i'm given a glimpse
of those condemned to death
centuries ago,
and of their executioners.
i see each pale face before me
the way a judge
pronouncing a sentence would,
marveling at the thought
that i do not exist yet.

with eyes closed i can hear
the evening birds.
soon they will be quiet
and the final night on earth
will commence
in the fullness of its sorrow.

how vast, dark, and impenetrable
are the early-morning skies
of those led to their death
in a world from which i'm entirely absent,
where i can still watch
someone's slumped back,
someone who is walking away from me
with his hands tied,
his graying head still on his shoulders,

someone who
in what little remains of his life
knows in some vague way about me,
and thinks of me as god,
as devil.

[also: folk songs, a book full of pictures, emily's theme, past-lives therapy, car graveyard, and wooden church.]

[Augustus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe I'm not meant to read more than one poem every week or two

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Voice at 3:00 A.M. is a good overview of Simic's poetry spanning from 1986 to 2003 when the book was released. But it does often feel like an overture, as though there is more substance in waiting elsewhere. Simic writes poetry that makes you think at questions that you are led to ask on your own, and confront reality in ways that you most likely hadn't considered before. A good deal of Simic's poetry deals with mortality and a sense of things that can't quite be put into words -- at least, not in words other than poetry. Unless you're a regular collector of Simic's other books, this is definitely worth picking up.

[Dana Jerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simic is a modern master. A writer of romantic, charmingly lewd at times, profoundly real yet upbeat short free-form poetry that goes back to the wellspring of desire and fetches jewels of imperfect memory. His work is accessible in a way that makes me wonder why he isn't more famous.
If poetry was money, this man would be president.

[Jennifer (wildling_manor) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book of poetry, the first I ever read of Simic, at 18 years old, the year it was published. I consider it one of my favorite possessions, as though one could possess the words inside.

Simic is hands down, my most beloved poet.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I shouldn't have bought this. I should just buy each individual volume of Charles Simic's poetry. I love this, but I kick myself.

[Melanie Medved · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many dog eared pages, there was no point in dog earring the pages.

[Teemu Helle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Upea, upea teos.

18.6.2024: edelleenkin todella upea teos. Ei ainuttakaan heikkoa runoa mukana; loistavia runoja on kymmenittäin.

[Leopoldo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simic es un observador ingenioso y agudo.

[Luke Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Simic the author of "The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems" has a great style when it comes to writing. Even though most of his books are works of poetry he gives a great description of the landscape in each one really helping you visualize what you are reading, such as the "Office of an obscure weekly preaching bloody revolution" Which is from his poem Charm School. Unlike many other poets Simic keeps most of cities and countries nameless as well as most things from daily life. You rarely read of brands of food or countries, the style of writing is very vague in this sense. The poems also generally seem to have a more satirical sense of humor as well as very diverse topics. Simic has no one feel to his poes, every poem has a different emotion and can give you intense feelings of sorrow or happiness in an instant. Overall even for just your average person who typically doesn't read poems I still think that this book can be a great read as long as you look deeper into the text, rather than just reading it.

[Michele Brack · Rating 4 out of 5]

#8 A book with a time of day in the title

I read a lot of Charles Simic when I was taking my poetry classes in undergrad and I found him very interesting. I've had this book sitting on the shelf for a while and figured this would be the best time to break it out and see if it was work keeping or not.

Some of the poems were so-so, but there were a select few that made me pull out my little post-its so that I could go back and appreciate them later. All-in-all, I think this one has a permanent place on my shelf.

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

pretty disappointed with this one. It's taken me a long time to get through this collection because they didn't inspire anything that made me want to continue.

The poems all felt bland and unimaginative. The diction was weak and most of the pieces failed to deliver any emotion. It was all very superficial and clunky. Most of the poems felt like first drafts that needed to be edited.

There were a few lines within some of the later/more recent poems that I found nice, but overall, I didn't enjoy most of the work.

[Allana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up without noticing it was a selection and not a collection of poems so I was skeptical at first. However, it's really well set up and old poems that belong to the same collection or book are kept together- which is not always the case and makes for a much more connected reading experience for me. Simic's poems won me over completely by the end, I never should have doubted him. I was sad to hear of his passing. RIP.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of Simic's poetry did nothing for me. Some too rambling, some too boring, some too vague, a few with strong beginnings but unsatisfying or uninteresting endings. Yet as if all of these were merely practice, this collection also contains some truly great poems (e.g. "Romantic Sonnet," "Country Fair," "The Secret") that ultimately worth the read, if not quite worth the purchase.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow I am missing the purpose of these poems. Maybe I didn’t spend enough time with each one, but none seemed to resonate quite like I hoped. I am envious of his ability to observe and capture moments. Maybe I will try another collection - found my way to his work from the landscape architect Laurie Olin’s excellent new book of essays.

[David Abrams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Typical Simic. Which means: as expected, the poems are excellent. War, age, love, and pondering the mysteries of life while sitting in a dimming cafe in the after hours of a hard day: that's what these poems talk about. Simic has a gift for bringing his point home to the reader with a sharp snap of the fingers, often in the last stanza, or last line.

[Richard Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's taken me more than three months to read my way through this collection, reading each poem at leat twice. I know of know other poet like Simic, who might best be described as a surrealist poet. All the poems are short, usually less than page, but each poem includes a powerful image in almsot every line.

[Albert Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good introduction to Simic's poems. He writes about the most mundane objects in the most surreal ways. Lots of rich imagery and a hint of melancholia throughout. Looking forward to eventually tackling more of his work.

[Julie Koh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surreal, fable-esque poems that jump out like art-film sequences in the mind. Exciting and always memorable, even terrifyingly resonant with difficult truths about the ever-mysterious nature of our everyday realities.

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are a collection of fine poems by Simic, one of my favorite poets. They're taken from several of his earlier book, with a handful of new poems added at the end. A good book to get acquainted with this accomplished poet if you have not read him before.

[Grace Wiles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simic is my cousin on the Dickinson side of the family — and by that, I mean he’s a big fan of hers and it shows in his writing. I really rock with his work; I think we have similar beliefs about the reasoning for poetry, and he simply writes beautifully. I think perhaps there were some filler poems in this collection, hence the 4 stars, and while he’s incredibly talented I don’t know that this style of poetry will be something I continue to read. In all, though, I’m glad to have read this.

[Lucaso · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm struggling to see why he's so adored. While many of the poems in this collection were crisper and clearer than those in the collection of his I read previously, I didn't find anything at which to marvel. Mostly, I was bored.