Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

The Lunatic: Poems
The Lunatic: Poems
The Lunatic: Poems
Ebook92 pages41 minutes

The Lunatic: Poems

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

From Pulitzer Prize winner and former Poet Laureate Charles Simic comes a dazzling collection of poems as original, meditative, and humorous as the legendary poet himself.

This latest volume of poetry from Charles Simic, one of America’s most celebrated poets, demonstrates his revered signature style—a mix of understated brilliance, wry melancholy, and sardonic wit. These seventy luminous poems range in subject from mortality to personal ads, from the simple wonders of nature to his childhood in war-torn Yugoslavia.

For over fifty years, Simic has delighted readers with his innovative form, quiet humor, and his rare ability to limn our interior life and concisely capture the depth of human emotion. These stunning, succinct poems—most no longer than a page, some no longer than a paragraph—validate and reinforce Simic’s importance and relevance in modern poetry.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateApr 7, 2015
ISBN9780062364760
The Lunatic: Poems
Author

Charles Simic

Charles Simic was a poet, essayist, and translator who was born in Yugoslavia in 1938 and immigrated to the United States in 1954. He published more than twenty books of poetry, in addition to a memoir and numerous books of translations for which he received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Wallace Stevens Award. In 2007, he served as poet laureate of the United States. He was a distinguished visiting writer at New York University and professor emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, where he taught since 1973. He died in January 2023 at the age of eighty-four.

Read more from Charles Simic

Related to The Lunatic

Related ebooks

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for The Lunatic

Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars
5/5

4 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    The Lunatic - Charles Simic

    I

    TODAY’S MENU

    All we got, mister,

    Is an empty bowl and a spoon

    For you to slurp

    Great mouthfuls of nothing,

    And make it sound like

    A thick, dark soup you’re eating,

    Steaming hot

    Out of the empty bowl.

    BREEDER OF BLACK CATS

    Carrying a fresh litter of them

    In pockets of his overcoat

    As he meanders down the street,

    Letting a kitten loose here and there

    To run free as a warning to me

    And to everyone else in sight,

    While donning his dark glasses,

    Hoping not to be recognized

    Entering a flower shop to buy flowers

    For one or two upcoming funerals.

    THE LUNATIC

    The same snowflake

    Kept falling out of the gray sky

    All afternoon,

    Falling and falling

    And picking itself up

    Off the ground,

    To fall again,

    But now more surreptitiously,

    More carefully

    As night strolled over

    To see what’s up.

    O SPRING

    O Spring, if I were to face a firing squad

    On a day like this, I’d wear

    One of your roadside flowers

    Behind my ear, lift my chin high

    Like a pastry cook standing

    Next to a prize-winning wedding cake,

    Smile like a hairdresser

    Giving Cameron Diaz a shampoo.

    Lovely day, you passed through town

    Like a Mardi Gras parade

    With ladies wearing colorful plumage on their heads

    Riding on your floats,

    Leaving the moon in the sky

    To be our night watchman and check with its lantern

    On every last patch of snow

    That may be hiding in the woods.

    ABOUT MYSELF

    I’m the uncrowned king of the insomniacs

    Who still fights his ghosts with a sword,

    A student of ceilings and closed doors,

    Making bets two plus two is not always four.

    A merry old soul playing the accordion

    On the graveyard shift in the morgue.

    A fly escaped from a head of

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1