Night Picnic: Poems

by Charles Simic

The author of Walking the Black Cat and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The World Doesn't End presents a new collection of poetry that evoke a rich variety of settings and images, from New York City's crowded sidewalks on a hot summer night to an abandoned old church in a small New England town. 15,000 first printing.

Genres: Poetry

86 pages, Hardcover

First published September 28, 2001

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

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm just a storefront dentist
Extracting a blackened tooth at midnight.

I chewed on many bitter thruths, Doc,
My patient says after he spits blood out

Still slumped over, gray-haired
And smelling of carrion just like me.

Of course, I may be the only one here,
Anf this is a mirror trick I'm performing.

Even the few small crumpled bills
He leaves on his way out, I don't believe in.

I may pluck them with a pair of wet pincers
And count them, and then I may not.

- - -

Gambling casino of the sky
Lit up with summer stars.

That's the soul's jukebox,
We are told by the night wind.

But when we ask what size coin it takes
We are greeted with stunned silence.

- - -

My narrow bed's
Asthmatic wheeze,
How well you must know it
In your insomnia,

As I toss and turn,
Mulling over
What beauty, what beast
You bait my trap with.

[Peycho Kanev]

Night Picnic

There was the sky, starless and vast—
Home of every one of our dark thoughts—
Its door open to more darkness.
And you, like a late door-to-door salesman,
With only your own beating heart
In the palm of your outstretched hand.

All things are imbued with God’s being—
(She said in hushed tones
As if his ghost might overhear us)
The dark woods around us,
Our faces which we cannot see,
Even this bread we are eating.

You were mulling over the particulars
Of your cosmic insignificance
Between slow sips of red wine.
In the ensuing quiet, you could hear
Her small, sharp teeth chewing the crust—
And then finally, she moistened her lips.

[Conor Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

He was happy to witness the world

[Emilie Grand’Pierre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never really liked Poetry books but this one is alright

These poems have a knack for describing emotions you did not know the English language could. My favorites were the poems about the couples experiencing moments of intimacy in public places—its crazy how good humans are of closing out the rest of the world when we want to

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 - 3 stars. I've enjoyed a lot of Simic's work, but this collection had more misses than hits for me. Such is life!

[Matt★ · Rating 3 out of 5]

RIP king 🙏

admittedly not his greatest collection but still solid.

[Дарина Гладун · Rating 5 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed reading this book.

[juyeon · Rating 4 out of 5]

now, let me have a book-lined tomb
in some old cemetery
where widows leave cigarettes and sweets
on the graves of their husbands,
and lovers come to solve the mysteries
of each other’s buttons 😞

[Evan Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loons! Loons!

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again, nostalgia, yet the title poem is the best in the book and one of my all time favorite poems.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the Very Soul of Me is one of the great poems in the English language. A lot of other great stuff in here, but it's worth reading for that one alone.

[Jadwiga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exhilarating and insightful poems. Each creates a snapshot of emotions or scene ever so exquisitely.

[Jan Moens · Rating 4 out of 5]

7,5/10

[Donald Armfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not many likes in this collection for me.

*Past-Lives Therapy
*The Avenue of Earthly Delights
*The Altar
*Demonology
*I Climbed a Tree to Make Sure
*Whispered in the Ear
*I've Had My Little Stroll

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always finish a Simic collection with a smile on my face. "And Then I Think" is a personal favorite from this book. Also: bonus points for having a title that rhymes with the author's name.