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My Noiseless Entourage
This new collection of poems from Charles Simic demonstrates once again his wit, moral acuity, and brilliant use of imagery. His settings are a farmhouse porch, a used-clothing store, empty station platforms; his subjects love, futility, and the sense of an individual life lived among a crowd of literal and imaginary presences.
Both sharp and sympathetic, the poems of this collection confirm Simic's place as one of the most important and appealing poets of our time.
To Dreams
I'm still living at all the old addresses,
Wearing dark glasses even indoors,
On the hush-hush sharing my bed
With phantoms, visiting in the kitchen
After midnight to check the faucet.
I'm late for school, and when I get there
No one seems to recognize me.
I sit disowned, sequestered and withdrawn.
These small shops open only at night
Where I make my unobtrusive purchases,
These back-door movie houses in seedy neighborhoods
Still showing grainy films of my life,
The hero always full of extravagant hope
Losing it all in the end?-whatever it was-
Then walking out into the cold, disbelieving light
Waiting close-lipped at the exit.
Both sharp and sympathetic, the poems of this collection confirm Simic's place as one of the most important and appealing poets of our time.
To Dreams
I'm still living at all the old addresses,
Wearing dark glasses even indoors,
On the hush-hush sharing my bed
With phantoms, visiting in the kitchen
After midnight to check the faucet.
I'm late for school, and when I get there
No one seems to recognize me.
I sit disowned, sequestered and withdrawn.
These small shops open only at night
Where I make my unobtrusive purchases,
These back-door movie houses in seedy neighborhoods
Still showing grainy films of my life,
The hero always full of extravagant hope
Losing it all in the end?-whatever it was-
Then walking out into the cold, disbelieving light
Waiting close-lipped at the exit.
64 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
6 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Charles Simic
256 books472 followersU.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 - 30 of 61 reviews
May 24, 2018
Every so often I need to right my ship by reading Simic poems, with their conglomeration of surrealism, close observation, and wry wit. Often strange, they are also often delightful and strangely warm, like an uncle who does card tricks for you at his knee. This collection is not his best, but even at his average, he can be delightful. There are 2-3 great poems in here.
This is just one of his poems, the title poem:
My Noiseless Entourage
We were never formally introduced.
I had no idea who among them was really I?
It was like a discreet entourage.
Each one about the same height.
Variously dressed we took the subway
Stealing peeks at each other over newspapers.
In moments of danger, they made themselves
scarce.
Where did they all disappear?
I asked some mugger one night
While he held a knife to my throat,
But he was spooked too,
Letting me go without a word,
Skipping over rain puddles
As if chased by his own shadow.
It was disconcerting, not to say criminal.
Flustered as I was, I reached
For the little black comb
I keep tucked in my breast pocket,
To run it through my hair once,
And make absolutely certain
At least one of us was still here.
Why I Still Write Poetry: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/05/...
The Art of Poetry: Charles Simic:
https://www.theparisreview.org/interv...
This is just one of his poems, the title poem:
My Noiseless Entourage
We were never formally introduced.
I had no idea who among them was really I?
It was like a discreet entourage.
Each one about the same height.
Variously dressed we took the subway
Stealing peeks at each other over newspapers.
In moments of danger, they made themselves
scarce.
Where did they all disappear?
I asked some mugger one night
While he held a knife to my throat,
But he was spooked too,
Letting me go without a word,
Skipping over rain puddles
As if chased by his own shadow.
It was disconcerting, not to say criminal.
Flustered as I was, I reached
For the little black comb
I keep tucked in my breast pocket,
To run it through my hair once,
And make absolutely certain
At least one of us was still here.
Why I Still Write Poetry: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/05/...
The Art of Poetry: Charles Simic:
https://www.theparisreview.org/interv...
March 3, 2018
Some wonderful poetry
PIGEONS AT DAWN
Extraordinary efforts are being made
To hide things from us, my friend.
Some stay up into the wee hours
To search their souls.
Others undress each other in darkened rooms.
...
PIGEONS AT DAWN
Extraordinary efforts are being made
To hide things from us, my friend.
Some stay up into the wee hours
To search their souls.
Others undress each other in darkened rooms.
...
May 15, 2018
Like having coffee with a close friend - meditative yet never moral; a true master of observational folly and redemptive choices.
September 19, 2017
"a blur of disrobed bodies
in the moments of sweet indolence
that follows lovemaking,
when the meanest of hearts
comes to believe
happiness can last forever"
in the moments of sweet indolence
that follows lovemaking,
when the meanest of hearts
comes to believe
happiness can last forever"
January 26, 2010
Most of these poems are very strange, yet also so accesssible to the reader. I didn't feel like I had to fight my way through them. This is one of my favorites--probably the most "normal" selection from this short collection.
Hitchhikers
after a Walker Evans photograph from the thirties
Hard times brought them out early
On this dreary stretch of road
Carrying a suitcase and a bedroll
With a frying pan tied to it,
The kind you use over a campfire
When a moss-covered log is your pillow
He's hopeful and she's ashamed
To be asking a stranger to take them
Away from here in a cloud of flying
Gravel and dust, past leafless trees
WIth their snarled and pointy little twigs
A man and a woman catching a ride
To where water tastes like cherry wine
She'll work as a maid or a waitress,
He'll pump gas or rob banks.
They'll buy a car as big as a hearse
To make their fast getaway,
Not forgetting to stop for you, mister
If you are down on luck yourself.
Hitchhikers
after a Walker Evans photograph from the thirties
Hard times brought them out early
On this dreary stretch of road
Carrying a suitcase and a bedroll
With a frying pan tied to it,
The kind you use over a campfire
When a moss-covered log is your pillow
He's hopeful and she's ashamed
To be asking a stranger to take them
Away from here in a cloud of flying
Gravel and dust, past leafless trees
WIth their snarled and pointy little twigs
A man and a woman catching a ride
To where water tastes like cherry wine
She'll work as a maid or a waitress,
He'll pump gas or rob banks.
They'll buy a car as big as a hearse
To make their fast getaway,
Not forgetting to stop for you, mister
If you are down on luck yourself.
May 19, 2025
Non fa per me. Non è scattato nulla.
Ammetto l'ignoranza: speravo Simic fosse un ragazzo promettente / poeta maledetto balcanico. Invece è già morto di vecchiaia. Ed è americano.
Questa raccolta l'ha pubblicata a 68 anni e, onestamente, si sente. Manca energia.
È tutto molto stanco e statico. Vecchi oggetti, ricordi e fotografie. Nessuna kaleidoscopica scossa di sensazioni. Niente vampate né saette.
In fondo al volume ci sono venti poesie scelte, scritte tra i 25 e i 65 anni. A parte le prime di chiara ispirazione beat, si conferma la prima impressione: poesie d'immagini, con l'idea di evocare qualcosa che a me non è arrivato.
Di solito non voto la poesia ma in questo caso sarei disonesto a non farlo.
Ammetto l'ignoranza: speravo Simic fosse un ragazzo promettente / poeta maledetto balcanico. Invece è già morto di vecchiaia. Ed è americano.
Questa raccolta l'ha pubblicata a 68 anni e, onestamente, si sente. Manca energia.
È tutto molto stanco e statico. Vecchi oggetti, ricordi e fotografie. Nessuna kaleidoscopica scossa di sensazioni. Niente vampate né saette.
In fondo al volume ci sono venti poesie scelte, scritte tra i 25 e i 65 anni. A parte le prime di chiara ispirazione beat, si conferma la prima impressione: poesie d'immagini, con l'idea di evocare qualcosa che a me non è arrivato.
Di solito non voto la poesia ma in questo caso sarei disonesto a non farlo.
April 27, 2009
I read all 51 poems in this book in one day. Years before I had read Simic's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of prose poems titled "The World Doesn't End". I recommend "My Noiseless Entourage" especially for readers who struggled with &/or who didn't "get" the prose poems in "The World Doesn't End". The poems in "Entourage" are all titled (unlike the prose poems in "World") and have line-breaks. I also blogged about this book & Simic's poetry in general on 24 April 2009 at my blog http://birthdaysofpoets.blogspot.com.
September 18, 2017
Nella vita - pare - non ho fatto altro che rovistare con un bastone tra le rovine finchè mi sono coperto di fuliggine e cenere che non riuscirei al lavare via, neanche volendo. Questa cenere rimane attaccata anche ai nostri occhi, poichè indugiamo e ritorniamo sulle immagini di S., cosi' presenti nella quotidianità, ma narrate con la lucidita' e la sensibilità dell'Osservatore - e quindi cosi' lontane dal normale sentire. Un alito freddo tra le scapole, un insolito odore di pietra, un cielo opaco. Con il testo a fronte, emerge netta la differenza tra il lirismo della espressione italiana, pesante, e la franchezza dell'equivalente inglese, fresco.
Read
February 14, 2023my first simic and sorry he's dead. was reminded of james tate in a way - American zany. but I think I prefer tate
Simic is a poet of endings, in this collection at least. they're heavy, but I think that's the aesthetic he goes for. Lines too crawl to their reach. neat pieces here and there but no mind made up. I like the closing pigeon poem
Simic is a poet of endings, in this collection at least. they're heavy, but I think that's the aesthetic he goes for. Lines too crawl to their reach. neat pieces here and there but no mind made up. I like the closing pigeon poem
March 9, 2020
El amor, ese maldito idiota que apunta una lámpara
con una batería desfalleciente hacia el pasado,
debería encontrar algo más que una cabra atada a un poste
y lista para darle un tope a cualquiera en las nalgas
si se atreve a cruzar su camino.
con una batería desfalleciente hacia el pasado,
debería encontrar algo más que una cabra atada a un poste
y lista para darle un tope a cualquiera en las nalgas
si se atreve a cruzar su camino.
March 12, 2008
To describe Charles Simic as a master of suspense would be misleading, given the cliché refers to a genre rather than a technique available to all writers. But that’s what he is. Simic, throughout his long, pleasantly varied career as a poet, memoirist, essayist, and critic, has always found a way to foreshadow his themes while always delaying the author-reader joint epiphany until the very last moment. Even when you know it’s coming, you’re still surprised.
In his new collection of poems of mixed success called My Noiseless Entourage, Simic can still surprise. I’ve long had my own projection of him as someone both avuncular and too-experienced, and now an image I keep of him is him, his hands cupped one over the other, offering something still-hidden, something I’m scared will be either too beautiful or really quite nasty. Consider this poem, “The Gamblers Upstairs,” from the first section of My Noiseless Entourage:
Now, you know where that poem is heading. A narrator not falling asleep; invisible characters—bewildering forces—somewhere above. “God’s throw or devil’s?” arrives as welcome and punctual as an overnight train. But Simic’s trademark is in the unveilings of last stanzas, in this case the introduction of a lovely liaison between the lower room and upper (completing the perhaps unintentional Orthodox triptych of festal suite, bridal chamber, and afterlife) and the undercutting humor of breaking one’s neck as people above gamble on fate. It’s as though, to borrow that freshman comp crutch, the case is being presented in the early stanzas but the proper frame arrives only at the very last. The same things happen in Simic’s 1996 collection Walking the Black Cat, the poems ending with winners like “My shoes need laces / My pants need your finger to hold them up,” or children, “their faces demonic,” running around the blaze of an autumn leaf-burn.
My Noiseless Entourage I wouldn’t place at the top of Simic’s work. But that doesn’t matter, as each of the cleanly-styled motley-topicked poems betters most anything else you’ll read by poets today. His poems are still, as always, populated by gamblers, black cats, bums, sidelong naivete, and angrifyingly observant imagery. Simic’s felicity with imagery native to cities, farms, Yugoslavia, Manhattan—well, anyone, writer or not, would be jealous to have such a stash.
But he’s most at home in this collection with the language of death, as something both feared and intriguing. There “Absentee Landlord”—
—and death-knowledge-pilfering in “Sweetest”—
—and these lines from “To Fate”: “And me already like an old piano / Dangling out of a window at the end of a rope.” And these from “Slurred Words”: “I was just one more crow / Trailing after the pallbearers.” Mortality is the connecting filament in this collection. But even eerifying poems like the title piece finish up with a surprise, a centripetal couple of lines to spin the reader out of the page and into their own lives.
How Simic dances from felons to children’s books—and you can see it right there!—I can’t explain. But he pulls it off, and it’s jarring in its subtlety. It affirms Simic’s talent and makes My Noiseless Entourage one of those rare books: a contemporary poetry collection you’d actually pay money to have.
In his new collection of poems of mixed success called My Noiseless Entourage, Simic can still surprise. I’ve long had my own projection of him as someone both avuncular and too-experienced, and now an image I keep of him is him, his hands cupped one over the other, offering something still-hidden, something I’m scared will be either too beautiful or really quite nasty. Consider this poem, “The Gamblers Upstairs,” from the first section of My Noiseless Entourage:
The faint rattle of dice rolling
Late at night
No one else hears—
They are wagering over me, placing bets,
The high rollers and their sidekicks
On their knees.
Little Joe from Baltimore,
Ada from Decatur.
The noise of bones,
The hush after each roll
Keeping me awake—
God’s throw or devil’s?
My love holding her hands over my eyes
As we inch toward the stairs
Stripped down to our underwear
And liable to slip and break our necks.
Now, you know where that poem is heading. A narrator not falling asleep; invisible characters—bewildering forces—somewhere above. “God’s throw or devil’s?” arrives as welcome and punctual as an overnight train. But Simic’s trademark is in the unveilings of last stanzas, in this case the introduction of a lovely liaison between the lower room and upper (completing the perhaps unintentional Orthodox triptych of festal suite, bridal chamber, and afterlife) and the undercutting humor of breaking one’s neck as people above gamble on fate. It’s as though, to borrow that freshman comp crutch, the case is being presented in the early stanzas but the proper frame arrives only at the very last. The same things happen in Simic’s 1996 collection Walking the Black Cat, the poems ending with winners like “My shoes need laces / My pants need your finger to hold them up,” or children, “their faces demonic,” running around the blaze of an autumn leaf-burn.
My Noiseless Entourage I wouldn’t place at the top of Simic’s work. But that doesn’t matter, as each of the cleanly-styled motley-topicked poems betters most anything else you’ll read by poets today. His poems are still, as always, populated by gamblers, black cats, bums, sidelong naivete, and angrifyingly observant imagery. Simic’s felicity with imagery native to cities, farms, Yugoslavia, Manhattan—well, anyone, writer or not, would be jealous to have such a stash.
But he’s most at home in this collection with the language of death, as something both feared and intriguing. There “Absentee Landlord”—
The least he could do is put up a sign:
AWAY ON BUSINESS
So we could see it
In the graveyard where he collects the rent
—and death-knowledge-pilfering in “Sweetest”—
Little candy in death’s candy shop
I gave your sugar a lick
When no one was looking,
Took you for a ride on my tongue
To all the secret places,
Trying to appear above suspicion
As I went about inspecting the confectionary,
Greeting the owner with a nod
With you safely tucked away
And melting to nothing in my mouth.
—and these lines from “To Fate”: “And me already like an old piano / Dangling out of a window at the end of a rope.” And these from “Slurred Words”: “I was just one more crow / Trailing after the pallbearers.” Mortality is the connecting filament in this collection. But even eerifying poems like the title piece finish up with a surprise, a centripetal couple of lines to spin the reader out of the page and into their own lives.
We were never formally introduced
I had no idea of their number.
It was like a discreet entourage
Of homegrown angels and demons
All of whom I had met before
And had since largely forgotten.
In time of danger, they made themselves scarce.
Where did they all vanish to?
I asked some felon one night
While he held a knife to my throat,
But he was spooked too,
Letting me go without a word.
It was disconcerting, downright frightening
To be reminded of one’s solitude,
Like opening a children’s book—
With nothing better to do—reading about stars,
How they can afford to spend centuries
Traveling our way on a glint of light.
How Simic dances from felons to children’s books—and you can see it right there!—I can’t explain. But he pulls it off, and it’s jarring in its subtlety. It affirms Simic’s talent and makes My Noiseless Entourage one of those rare books: a contemporary poetry collection you’d actually pay money to have.
January 2, 2026
Tre stelle e mezzo. Alcune poesie molto belle, altre no.
April 17, 2025
Just things as they are
Charles Simic è un poeta che ha sempre la capacità di mettere in discussione le mie (fragili e incompetenti) idee su cosa renda grande la poesia (e l'arte): pur convinto che il fatto estetico, la forma sia il principale (se non l'unico) criterio per un giudizio su un'opera, questo artista riesce ad evadere da questa limitazione e a riempirmi di dubbi.
Lo scrivere di Simic sembra infatti poco interessato alla forma, ma ottiene risultati espressivi e visioni straordinarie con quelli che sembrano umili e prosaici strumenti. Sono la vita misera e faticosa, gli oggetti squallidi e spenti il centro della sua poetica e risulta difficile capire come possa arrivare a tali vertici esistenziali, filosofici e creativi partendo da "così in basso".
E' una poesia di domande e di dubbi: l'ermetismo del quotidiano e i misteri della vita concreta e domestica che nascondono immensità inesplorabili.
While you sit
Like a rain puddle in hell
Knitting the socks
Of your life
I nomi che vengono in mente nel leggere questi versi sono quelli di un altro grande scrittore e un altrettanto grande artista (probabilmente non a caso, entrambi americani): qui troviamo infatti visioni molto simili a quelle di Edward Hopper e, al tempo stesso, le atmosfere rarefatte e sospese di Raymond Carver.
Credo che la potenza e unicità di Simic sia quella di affrontare temi immensi e nascosti senza nascondersi, mettendoci ad ogni pagina davanti alla insensatezza e catastrofe dell'esistenza: esemplari sono questi versi dove la natura (spesso considerata scioccamente come salvezza per l'uomo e luogo di serenità e senso) si mostra per quello che è: inutile e immutabile - con la splendida immagine delle onde che si ripetono, scusandosi all'infinito per la loro futilità.
Sea waves destined to repeat themselves,
Forever stammering excuses
To the gulls lining up your shores.
e la chiusa è micidiale e definitiva rispetto alla speranza di trovare risposte
Every time I went to the sea and sky
To seek advice, this is what I got
E, chiaramente, lo stesso trattamento è riservato alla divinità, assente nel migliore casi, lasciandoci vittime di un esistenzialismo senza strade o risposte - che non ha neppure nomi per esprimersi
To our Lord who has withdrawn
Into a corner with his wounds
I say, that world out there
Is a riddle even you can’t solve.
Dear Lord, can you see
The fleas run for cover?
No, he can’t see the fleas.
Little thoughts about many little things,
Or big thoughts about one big thing?
Bent under some obscure burden,
We were fleeing,
Crossing the avenue and dispersing
As if we, too, had wings.
But that night I lay slumped on the floor,
Chewing on a pencil,
Sighing from time to time,
Growling, too, at something out there
I could not bring myself to name.
Nonostante non sia evidente, però, il lavoro di Simic sulla lingua è certosino e molto profondo: ogni singola parola è pesata e misurata per ottenere un preciso effetto. Il poeta lavora sulle parole comuni per creare atmosfere esistenzialmente cupe e disperate e visioni sfasate e disturbanti.
Si hanno quindi invenzioni sintattiche e lessicali davvero notevoli:
Snowflake and laughter salad.
Cuckoo-clock soup.
Andouillettes of angel and beast.
Bowlegged nightingale in aspic.
La sintassi normale, comprensibile ma incombente, anche in traduzione non perde molto - per quanto la lettura in inglese non comporti particolari problemi, in Simic conta più il non detto che il suono dello scritto, quindi anche in italiano questa poesia conserva gran parte del suo valore.
Termino indicando quelli che secondo me sono i vertici di questa raccolta, esemplari per la scrittura icastica, asciutta e potente con ogni parola perfetta e scolpita nella pietra
"The Role of Insomnia in History"
The quiet of little-traveled country roads
Crisscrossed by shadows.
The house with curtains drawn,
A pair of red slippers on the front steps,
But no one in the barn
Just things as they are,
Unblinking, lying mute
In that bright light,
And the trees waiting for the night.
"Grayheaded Schoolchildren"
Old men have bad dreams,
So they sleep little.
They walk on bare feet
Without turning on the lights,
Or they stand leaning
On gloomy furniture
Listening to their hearts beat.
The one window across the room
Is black like a blackboard.
Every old man is alone
In this classroom, squinting
At that fine chalk line
That divides being-here From being-here-no-more.
The more I read, the less I understand.
Charles Simic è un poeta che ha sempre la capacità di mettere in discussione le mie (fragili e incompetenti) idee su cosa renda grande la poesia (e l'arte): pur convinto che il fatto estetico, la forma sia il principale (se non l'unico) criterio per un giudizio su un'opera, questo artista riesce ad evadere da questa limitazione e a riempirmi di dubbi.
Lo scrivere di Simic sembra infatti poco interessato alla forma, ma ottiene risultati espressivi e visioni straordinarie con quelli che sembrano umili e prosaici strumenti. Sono la vita misera e faticosa, gli oggetti squallidi e spenti il centro della sua poetica e risulta difficile capire come possa arrivare a tali vertici esistenziali, filosofici e creativi partendo da "così in basso".
E' una poesia di domande e di dubbi: l'ermetismo del quotidiano e i misteri della vita concreta e domestica che nascondono immensità inesplorabili.
While you sit
Like a rain puddle in hell
Knitting the socks
Of your life
I nomi che vengono in mente nel leggere questi versi sono quelli di un altro grande scrittore e un altrettanto grande artista (probabilmente non a caso, entrambi americani): qui troviamo infatti visioni molto simili a quelle di Edward Hopper e, al tempo stesso, le atmosfere rarefatte e sospese di Raymond Carver.
Credo che la potenza e unicità di Simic sia quella di affrontare temi immensi e nascosti senza nascondersi, mettendoci ad ogni pagina davanti alla insensatezza e catastrofe dell'esistenza: esemplari sono questi versi dove la natura (spesso considerata scioccamente come salvezza per l'uomo e luogo di serenità e senso) si mostra per quello che è: inutile e immutabile - con la splendida immagine delle onde che si ripetono, scusandosi all'infinito per la loro futilità.
Sea waves destined to repeat themselves,
Forever stammering excuses
To the gulls lining up your shores.
e la chiusa è micidiale e definitiva rispetto alla speranza di trovare risposte
Every time I went to the sea and sky
To seek advice, this is what I got
E, chiaramente, lo stesso trattamento è riservato alla divinità, assente nel migliore casi, lasciandoci vittime di un esistenzialismo senza strade o risposte - che non ha neppure nomi per esprimersi
To our Lord who has withdrawn
Into a corner with his wounds
I say, that world out there
Is a riddle even you can’t solve.
Dear Lord, can you see
The fleas run for cover?
No, he can’t see the fleas.
Little thoughts about many little things,
Or big thoughts about one big thing?
Bent under some obscure burden,
We were fleeing,
Crossing the avenue and dispersing
As if we, too, had wings.
But that night I lay slumped on the floor,
Chewing on a pencil,
Sighing from time to time,
Growling, too, at something out there
I could not bring myself to name.
Nonostante non sia evidente, però, il lavoro di Simic sulla lingua è certosino e molto profondo: ogni singola parola è pesata e misurata per ottenere un preciso effetto. Il poeta lavora sulle parole comuni per creare atmosfere esistenzialmente cupe e disperate e visioni sfasate e disturbanti.
Si hanno quindi invenzioni sintattiche e lessicali davvero notevoli:
Snowflake and laughter salad.
Cuckoo-clock soup.
Andouillettes of angel and beast.
Bowlegged nightingale in aspic.
La sintassi normale, comprensibile ma incombente, anche in traduzione non perde molto - per quanto la lettura in inglese non comporti particolari problemi, in Simic conta più il non detto che il suono dello scritto, quindi anche in italiano questa poesia conserva gran parte del suo valore.
Termino indicando quelli che secondo me sono i vertici di questa raccolta, esemplari per la scrittura icastica, asciutta e potente con ogni parola perfetta e scolpita nella pietra
"The Role of Insomnia in History"
The quiet of little-traveled country roads
Crisscrossed by shadows.
The house with curtains drawn,
A pair of red slippers on the front steps,
But no one in the barn
Just things as they are,
Unblinking, lying mute
In that bright light,
And the trees waiting for the night.
"Grayheaded Schoolchildren"
Old men have bad dreams,
So they sleep little.
They walk on bare feet
Without turning on the lights,
Or they stand leaning
On gloomy furniture
Listening to their hearts beat.
The one window across the room
Is black like a blackboard.
Every old man is alone
In this classroom, squinting
At that fine chalk line
That divides being-here From being-here-no-more.
The more I read, the less I understand.
April 21, 2015
It seems as if one protagonist greets us, in Charles Simic's poem collection, "My Silent Entourage". He lives in a shadow world, among the screams of silent voices, and is in fact only a shadow himself. The voice of the poems is if a war correspondent, not an actual participant, but a witness finds himself "in back door movie houses in seedy neighborhoods still showing grainy films of my life." He also over hears "The faint rattle of dice rolling/Late at night/No one else hears--/They are wagering over me, placing bets." You can say his world is haunted, forbidding and treacherous. "My love holding her hands over my eyes/As we inch down the stairs/Stripped down to our underwear/And liable to slip and break our necks." The action and images seem to be from a person about to wonder off into eternity or senility. They are brilliant poems, working metaphors seamlessly into a conscious world that carries us through back streets, farms, graveyards and uses bookstores where "lovers hold hands in never opened novels./the page with a recipe for cucumber soup is missing./A dead man writes of his happy childhood on a farm, /Of riding in a balloon over Lake Erie." You get to visit used clothing stores, with "a large stock of past lives to rummage through for the one that fits you..." The poems don't descend in to despair or oblivion, they promise To feed them angel cake,/All but invisible, but for her slender arm." Simic's poems encourage us to keep seeking, even if we don' t always like what we find.
August 2, 2017
L' "inudibile entourage" che popola questa raccolta di poesie è una sinfonia di persone, animali ed oggetti quotidiani che abitano le case, le strade ed i negozi notturni di città fantasma. Sono ambienti dominati da un senso di straniamento, da un'aura di mistero e di ambiguità, un'atmosfera di rischio incombente, con le parole che rimangono oscure a dirci che qualcosa di inspiegabile è successo.Ombre, notte, sogni, buio e silenzio sono alcuni dei termini ai quali Simic ricorre con maggior frequenza, per rafforzare la sensazione di sospensione di cui si è detto, l'idea di trovarsi a metà del guado, sempre in bilico con qualcosa che è sul punto di succedere da un momento all'altro. Tutto è incerto. I gesti possono avere un significato, oppure no. Il mondo descritto è un mondo enigmatico, che non si riesce ad interpretare. Il mistero ed il dubbio entrano nell'ambiente domestico, oggetti e persone si spostano da una zona d'ombra ad un'altra con finalità che sfuggono all'osservatore. Paradigmatiche possono essere considerate le poesie "Araldo di sciagure" (per i temi trattati) e "L'allarme" (per le atmosfere), ma soprattutto "Chiedi al tuo astrologo" ed ancor di più "Il nostro vecchio vicino". In estrema sintesi direi che in questa raccolta Simic riprende tematiche kafkiane già declinate in poesia da Strand e le sviluppa in maniera personale e quanto mai attuale. Il tutto IMHO, si intende.
January 22, 2008
Haunted is the word to describe this collection. Charles Simic makes his demons elegant, almost likeable creatures. I felt the need to look over my shoulder as I read each poem. A fine example of how Simic carves out the mold of isolation and paranoia in which each poem is poured is in the poem called "The Absentee Landlord":
And not leave us alone
With that curious feeling
We sometimes have
Of there being a higher purpose
To our residing here
Where nothing works
And everything needs fixing.
The strange lack of enjambment seems to isolate each line, reiterating the solitude that the poem explores.
And not leave us alone
With that curious feeling
We sometimes have
Of there being a higher purpose
To our residing here
Where nothing works
And everything needs fixing.
The strange lack of enjambment seems to isolate each line, reiterating the solitude that the poem explores.
September 16, 2010
These poems are disarmingly simplistic on the surface, tight and short and spare. It's easy to read the whole book in a sitting, but that doesn't mean there aren't show-stoppers here, and many moments of "yes, this is what poetry is for/about". His use of language seems effortless and inspires envy, as well as his clarity. My favorite, THE ABSENTEE LANDLORD, is here, 2nd poem down on the page: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_c.... I checked this out from the library, but am going to buy a copy to add to my favorite poetry volumes.
May 22, 2010
2006 wrote: I must say that this volume of poetry almost killed me. Seriously, this is some of the most haunting poetry i have ever read. It captures those moments that are little dieings in one's life. Not for the clinically depressed, or for those who are afraid of falling into that trend. Poetry is meant to stir emotions, but nothing should ever stir these emotions. It is why Simic has won the Pulitzer Prize for his work.
September 22, 2011
Being a poet myself, I am ashamed to say that this is the first poetry collection I've read in entirety. Simic is quite interesting, to tell the truth - some poems are brilliant, some are funny, some are bizarre. I like it how he managed to combine all these things into a collection. Diversity is the word, most definitely.
May 4, 2014
Discomforting events in peoples lives describe this collection. Truth in all its disturbing forms flows from his experience and observation. His poetry is a direct reflection in the mirror; showing us that divine intervention in mankind's pitiful state is needed. This collection reminds us to not passively turn our eyes away.
May 30, 2016
The sort of short form poems that feel like a quick glimpse at a moment in time. Simic doesn't always let you in to what exactly he's thinking and writing, but there are pages that make you stop and connect back to a similar moment in your own life. Poetry is an acquired taste for most people, and Simics eschews the bright and sunny, but rather touches something much more real.
September 8, 2008
a three legged dog, or five legged table. not as foreboding or as upcoming as his usual worlds, but notable for its resignation that though the world doesn't end, it may at times sleep. if you're a Simic newcomer, I'd arrive at 'a wedding in hell' or 'hotel insomnia' first.
July 20, 2012
It's nice having poems more manageable, the lines short and controlled, stanzas carefully pruned. The images are strange and mysterious, but the reader isn't overloaded with them. Many of these poems I read a second and third time, and they hold up well.
June 17, 2009
great stuff so far
August 30, 2013
I loved this collection. Some of the poems were not so strong, but overall, this is the best in modern poetry!
May 9, 2015
Poetic mastermind!
October 15, 2018
When one becomes familiar with an author through reading a large quantity of his or her works, one gets a very strong sense of who they are as an author. There are some authors who grow in one's estimation over time as one gets a sense of their depth and profundity. There are other authors who may seem entertaining at first but become cloying and irritating after a while. I find that Simic does not fall into either of those camps, but rather he is someone who reveals himself pretty openly in any book of his poetry you happen to read, and then remains consistent throughout, emphasizing different aspects of his approach in different volumes but largely remaining consistent as an author. If you like the author's approach and find his mordant view of the world appealing, you will likely find any of his books appealing. If you are not won over by the author's descriptions of his own struggles with the infinite and divine, then you are not likely to enjoy much of his reading at all. Either way, his approach has been consistent in all the books I have read of his so far [1] (most of whom have their reviews forthcoming).
Divided into four parts, this book, like many others within its author's oeuvre, is under 100 pages in length and presents no difficulties to reading, aside from coming to terms with the author's approach to life and writing, which is a pretty consistent challenge present in all of his works. As is often the case, the reader may wonder about the relationship between the title of the book and its emphasis within the author's characteristic concerns. Here, as in many of the author's works, there are reflections about morning, insomnia, dreams and intrusive memories, death, mysticism, and related subjects. But here too the author makes his approach to used clothing and used books an issue, along with an explicit appreciation of the tragic view of history, confession, and the futility as well as chancy aspects of life. These do not amount to a change in the author's perspective, but rather suggest that when the author wrote these poems there were certain preoccupations on his mind, and here the author appears to be aiming at a more sordid part of life where cockroaches dwell and where people go to thrift shops and used book stores to look for bargains.
This is not a world I am unfamiliar with, nor is it a world I have failed to explore in my own writing, but it is intriguing to think that a well-known and world-famous author like this one would aim his writings in such a direction. Is he reflecting on the ghosts of history, or is it really that even well-known poets are simply not as well off as we might assume. The author, like many people, travels through life burdened by the ghosts of the past who continue to haunt him even if they are unrecognized by others, but that troubled spirit appears to make him lose track of time and examine a part of the world that seems to attract little attention by many poets--how many poets write about talk radio, for example? As is often the case, the author draws a sense of sympathy even if much of what he talks about is pretty disturbing. That complexity, in that the author is sympathetic even if much of his writing is not particularly written with sympathy in mind, is one of the more notable aspects of the writer's approach, and something well worth keeping in mind as one reads his works.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
Divided into four parts, this book, like many others within its author's oeuvre, is under 100 pages in length and presents no difficulties to reading, aside from coming to terms with the author's approach to life and writing, which is a pretty consistent challenge present in all of his works. As is often the case, the reader may wonder about the relationship between the title of the book and its emphasis within the author's characteristic concerns. Here, as in many of the author's works, there are reflections about morning, insomnia, dreams and intrusive memories, death, mysticism, and related subjects. But here too the author makes his approach to used clothing and used books an issue, along with an explicit appreciation of the tragic view of history, confession, and the futility as well as chancy aspects of life. These do not amount to a change in the author's perspective, but rather suggest that when the author wrote these poems there were certain preoccupations on his mind, and here the author appears to be aiming at a more sordid part of life where cockroaches dwell and where people go to thrift shops and used book stores to look for bargains.
This is not a world I am unfamiliar with, nor is it a world I have failed to explore in my own writing, but it is intriguing to think that a well-known and world-famous author like this one would aim his writings in such a direction. Is he reflecting on the ghosts of history, or is it really that even well-known poets are simply not as well off as we might assume. The author, like many people, travels through life burdened by the ghosts of the past who continue to haunt him even if they are unrecognized by others, but that troubled spirit appears to make him lose track of time and examine a part of the world that seems to attract little attention by many poets--how many poets write about talk radio, for example? As is often the case, the author draws a sense of sympathy even if much of what he talks about is pretty disturbing. That complexity, in that the author is sympathetic even if much of his writing is not particularly written with sympathy in mind, is one of the more notable aspects of the writer's approach, and something well worth keeping in mind as one reads his works.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
April 3, 2021
(Una recensione mixata coi versi del testo)
Com'è silenziosa la città
Che serata fredda e buia
Da passare qui alla fiera
Devi arrivarci di traverso
In stanze velate d'ombra
Confusi e disorientati
Mentre avanziamo a piccoli passi
Con il rischio di scivolare e di romperci il collo
Che grandiosa parata di fantasmi
Un discreto entourage di angeli e demoni nostrani
E il modo in cui qui il tempo governa le cose
Con le sue espansioni e le sue contrazioni
Poi c'è il paradosso estetico
Uno specchio che dava a ogni cosa
Un tremolio come la boccia dei pesci
Diventare qualcosa di completamente diverso
Com'è silenziosa la città
Che serata fredda e buia
Da passare qui alla fiera
Devi arrivarci di traverso
In stanze velate d'ombra
Confusi e disorientati
Mentre avanziamo a piccoli passi
Con il rischio di scivolare e di romperci il collo
Che grandiosa parata di fantasmi
Un discreto entourage di angeli e demoni nostrani
E il modo in cui qui il tempo governa le cose
Con le sue espansioni e le sue contrazioni
Poi c'è il paradosso estetico
Uno specchio che dava a ogni cosa
Un tremolio come la boccia dei pesci
Diventare qualcosa di completamente diverso
June 15, 2023
I’ll admit, I struggled with Simic’s pared-down style for a while, but you slowly acculturate yourself to it, and these are rewarding to finally draw some meaning from. Was gonna give it three stars but then the final poem “Pigeons at Dawn” (linked below) was such a banger that I bumped it up to four.
https://poets.org/poem/pigeons-dawn
https://poets.org/poem/pigeons-dawn
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