Charles+Simic,+2007-2008


 * Charles Simic (2007-2008) **

Charles Simic was born on May 9, 1938, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where he had a traumatic childhood during World War II. In 1954 he emigrated from Yugoslavia with his mother and brother to join his father in the United States. They lived in and around Chicago until 1958.

His first poems were published in 1959, when he was twenty-one. In 1961 he was drafted into the U.S. Army, and in 1966 he earned his Bachelor's degree from New York University while working at night to cover the costs of tuition.

His first full-length collection of poems, //What the Grass Says//, was published the following year. Since then he has published more than sixty books in the U.S. and abroad, twenty titles of his own poetry among them, including //That Little Something// (2008), //My Noiseless Entourage// (2005); //Selected Poems: 1963-2003// (2004), for which he received the 2005 International Griffin Poetry Prize; //The Voice at 3:00 AM: Selected Late and New Poems// (2003); //Night Picnic// (2001); //The Book of Gods and Devils// (2000); and //Jackstraws// (1999), which was named a Notable Book of the Year by the //New York Times//.

His other books of poetry include //Walking the Black Cat// (1996), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; //A Wedding in Hell// (1994); //Hotel Insomnia// (1992); //The World Doesn't End: Prose Poems// (1990), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; //Selected Poems: 1963-1983// (1990); and //Unending Blues// (1986).

Simic has also published numerous translations of French, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian poetry, and is the author of several books of essays, including //Orphan Factory//. He has edited several anthologies, including an edition of [|//The Best American Poetry//] in 1992.

Simic was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 2007. He was chosen to receive the [|Academy Fellowship] in 1998, and elected a [|Chancellor] of The Academy of American Poets in 2000. He has has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995.

Simic is Emeritus Professor of the University of New Hampshire where he has taught since 1973.

code How much death works, No one knows what a long Day he puts in. The little Wife always alone Ironing death's laundry. The beautiful daughters Setting death's supper table. The neighbors playing Pinochle in the backyard Or just sitting on the steps Drinking beer. Death, Meanwhile, in a strange Part of town looking for Someone with a bad cough, But the address somehow wrong, Even death can't figure it out Among all the locked doors... And the rain beginning to fall. Long windy night ahead. Death with not even a newspaper To cover his head, not even A dime to call the one pining away, Undressing slowly, sleepily, And stretching naked On death's side of the bed.
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