Oh, cool–we got a new one:
On August 2, 2007, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced the appointment of Charles Simic to be the 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.
Read up. Two of my favorites are “Fork” and “Watermelons.” They’re both short, clear, and beautiful, so if you think you’re not really a poetry person, they may be a good place to start. Remember to read “Fork” out loud for the full effect of the final line.
Works by Simic
- “Shelly”
- “My Shoes”
- “Prodigy”
- “Fork”
- “The Clocks of the Dead”
- “Cameo Appearance”
- “In the Library”
- “Country Fair”
- “Eyes Fastened With Pins”
- “Late September”
- “Pigeons at Dawn”
- “Read Your Fate”
- “Riddle”
- “The Initiate”
- “The Something”
- “The White Room”
- “This Morning”
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“Watermelons”
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- “I am the last…”
- From The World Doesn’t End (“We were so poor … ” and “The stone is … “)
- “Against Whatever It Is That’s Encroaching “
- “Autumn Sky”
- “Charon’s Cosmology”
- “Clouds Gathering”
- “Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites”
- “Empire of Dreams”
- “Eyes Fastened with Pins”
- “Factory”
- “October Arriving”
- “Old Couple”
- “Past-Lives Therapy”
- “Tapestry”
- “The Old World”
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“The Wooden Toy”
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- “Watch Repair”
- “Night Clerk in a Roach Motel”
- “Mummy’s Curse”
- “How to Psalmodize”
- “Poem Without a Title”
- “Inner Man”
- “Coal”
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“A Book Full of Pictures”
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“Against Winter”
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“Errata”
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“Heights Of Folly”
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“Hotel Insomnia”
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“Paradise Motel”
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“Private Eye”
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“Summer In The Country”
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“Talking To Little Birdies”
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“The Bather”
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“The Oldest Child”
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“The Partial Explanation”
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“The School Of Metaphysics”
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“The Supreme Moment”
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“To The One Upstairs”
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“Wherein Obscurely”
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“White”
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The following poems are hosted on a site with nasty popups