Incendiary Lit

Warning: Poet Laureate Loitering!

That’s right, earlier in this month Charles Simic was named US Poet Laureate. If you keep up on the poetry news you already knew that, but on the odd chance that you weren’t, just thought I’d mention it. Simic’s a wonderful poet born in Yugoslavia, who immigrated to the US at 16, and has been producing wonderful poems since. He specializes in short, somewhat abstract imagistic poems… I know what you’re thinking… but sometimes you’re just in the mood to read a Simic poem, or book. I read Walking the Black Cat and Hotel Insomnia each in just one sitting, and have revisited both many times. Anyway, here’s the slightly fuller story from www.pw.org which I highly recommend browsing, as well as joining their message board at the speakeasy. There are some very knowledgeable, and helpful writers/editors who post there. And here’s a link to www.poets.org which has a great biography as well as some of Charles Simic’s poetry. He currently works as poetry editor for the Paris Review, and if you’re really on a knowledge/insight kick, here’s a link to his Paris Review interview titled “The Art of Poetry.” Below this line is one of my favorite Simic poems. If he happens upon this and would like me to remove it, at but a whisper it will be gone.

Marked Playing Cards
by Charles Simic

I took my TV andbass fiddle to the pawnshop.
Then I had my car stolen and everything in it.
This morning I’m down to a wind breaker and house
slippers.
But I feel cheerful, even though it’s snowing.
This proves she loves me, I said to the crowd
Waiting for the bus. They were afraid to look my way.

I let myself be reduced to rags, I explained.
I marked playing cards to cheat against myself.
All my life I kept raising the stakes, knowing
That each new loss assured me of her complete love.
(The bus was late, so they had to hear the rest.)
I told them that I never met her, but that I was certain
She has a premonition of my existence,
As I do of hers. Perhaps this is the moment
She comes along and recognizes me standing here?

Because my mind was busy with our first kiss,
I didn’t hear the bus arrive and leave.
High over the roofs, the sky was already clearing.
I still had the greasy cards in my pocket.
With my bad luck, I surmised, she was due by nightfall.
Shuffling through the snow and shivering,
I was ready to bet the rest of my clothes on her.

Posted: Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Category: Writers, Poets, Award Winners.