Charles Simic | Poetry Hut Blog

So do you think this poem is racist, as has been interpreted here? I can think of a few poems with the P word — Plath, Bukowski … Macbeth. Philip Levine I bet.

I am sooo getting sick of political-correctness groupthink. Die Gedanken sind frei.

Poetry News For June 30, 2008

Poetry News:

— These are poems of stark strength and startling honesty, constantly revealing the shock of the reality of everyday existence, touched often by a quiet dry humor —

— With invention, irony, and uncanny instinct, three poets show off their mastery of the surreal —

— T.S. ELIOT v. PORTISHEAD —

— Stray Questions for: Mary Jo Salter —

— Sounds of final partings fill Schultz’s verse —

— Ernest Cipolone, 87, of Brooklawn, who has been writing poetry for 60 years, read his verses before an audience for the first time —

— If anyone these days is hanging onto a notion of consistent stylistic evolution as aesthetic merit, this volume will do its best to disorient them —

— Sylvia Plath Trivia - Answers! —

— Poetry roundup —

“Third Genders” in Societies with Rigid Gender Roles

The Guardian recently asked its arts critics to cover sports for a day — and vice versa. The results are quite winning!

I don’t think my RSS feeds are working properly since my upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress. Sorry. If you have problems, please email. Though if folks aren’t getting the RSS feed they won’t see this request haha.

Poetry News For May 15, 2008

Poetry News:

— If you didn’t browse the comments when I posted about M.F.A. programs last month, you really should: they veered quickly and entertainingly toward gang warfare, with the Crips arguing against such programs and the Bloods arguing for them —

— Mary Oliver’s ‘work is loving the world’ —

— Strip —

— A sheaf of post-April poetry and poets —

— If poets were cowboys, James Tate would be The Man with No Name. It would be the spaghettiest western ever; his shadow would fall across the saloon door and everything inside would go quiet. —

— The future of poetry magazines —

Poetry News For April 30, 2008

Poetry News:

— You’re saying to the world, this is how I want to be read, this is how I want to be seen, and those are hard decisions to make —

— Poetry in Motion, Thanks to YouTube —

— The 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded Friday evening, April 25, 2008, at UCLA’s Royce Hall —

— Manitoba Authors Honoured at Manitoba Book Awards —

— Gioia’s Poetry Set to Music as Hudson Review Turns 60 —

— It’s time for difficult writing to step up —

— Elegy for a Scarred Shoulder will debut May 1, 2008 at free reading and booksigning at 7:00 pm in Kalman Auditorium at Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center, 18101 Oakwood Blvd in Dearborn, Michigan —

— A Spring Bouquet of Poetry —

— Nuyorican Poets Cafe celebrates 35 years of odes —

— He currently writes for the New York Review of Books and is Poetry Editor of the Paris Review. He answered your questions on the state of poetry today. [links to MP3] —

— Fifteen months in India in the early 1960s had a lasting influence on Allen Ginsberg. —

— The metrical pattern, with its short, tumbling line, is sometimes known as “skeltonics” —

— Groundbreaking Book: Ariel, by Sylvia Plath —

— Cinderella Schools for Writers —

— Former beat movement member Gary Snyder wins $100,000 poetry prize —

Twelve Suggestions for Dealing with the Tibetan Situation, by Some Chinese Intellectuals

Ach, my appt at the pain clinic got moved back a week, due to a conference. You’d think a pain clinic consultation would be zippy.

How to be a jerk
1. Read a lukewarm review of your book on Amazon.
2. Explain to reader how she is mistaken.
3. Encourage deletion of reader’s review.
4. Have friends / fellow authors harass reviewer?
5. Have Private Investigator dig up personal information on reviewer. (?!)
6. There is no #6.
7. Amazon bans the reviewer.
8. Profit?
(there’s a boycott amazon group at Facebook BTW.)
And Writers call for 1 May Amazon, eBay boycott
…RSS feed backlog.

Simic stepping aside as U.S. poet laureate

Link to an article.

Looks like I’ll have to update my Poets Laureate map pretty soon.

Tags: Charles Simic, poet, Poet Laureate, Poetry, Poetry News, poets

Poetry News For February 3, 2008

Poetry News:

— The second part of this post is about my impression of the role that some phantasmatic nightmare image of AWP plays in the imaginations of many participants in the various online poetry worlds —

— The poet laureate talks about how he’s not enamored of nature, his vote in the New Hampshire primary and the American preoccupation with happiness —

— Robert Pinsky’s work speaks to us in our common language and relates that language to our hopes as citizens —

— LOC Guide to Poetry & Literature Webcasts: Individual Poets, Novelists, and Writers —

— McGrath’s audacity has a genial, sociable quality, often with a flippancy that he directs back at himself, in the American tradition of kidding —

— Bukowski’s typewriter and night lair in daylight. Does this seem at all familiar to you? —

— Drunk poet climbs over cliff, seeking inspiration —

This song is being beamed to the “North Star” tomorrow. Hint: John Lennon wrote it. link. Happy 40th birthday, cool song.

Solving The Mystery Of The Metallic Sheen Of Fish

Poetry News For January 14, 2008

Poetry News:

— In ‘‘Elegy,’’ poet Mary Jo Bang has taken on one of the largest and most difficult subjects in all of literature —

— National Book Critics Circle finalists —

— John Milton: the poet who gave us ‘Star Trek’ and ‘The Matrix’ —

— Former poet laureate opening another chapter in his life —

— How lovely it is that there are words and sounds —

— John Ashbery, Octavio Paz, Stanley Kunitz and Robert Pinsky all wrote poems for him —

— he calls for the impeachment of George W. Bush, whom he calls “a booted, sombrero’d/cowboy Caligula/who couldn’t manage a straw/horse on a parade float…” —

— Ex-carpenter warms up tp poet laureate honor —

— Editorial: Frost home vandalism is deeply disturbing —

— Poets and jazz artists find rhythm and rhyme —

— Taslima Nasreen has been chosen for the prestigious Simon de Beauvoir feminist award in recognition of her writing on rights for women —

— Vendetta fear after poet murdered —

— Denise Clarke is entertaining as poet Anne Sexton in Sylvia Plath Must Not Die —

— If Fence magazine were an actual fence, it would be a portable one —

— A different kind of poetry concentrates more strikingly on expressiveness —

I’m going to Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness in March. I bought a plane ticket but I don’t know where I’m staying yet. I’ve only been to D.C. once, for some computer security training. But I took a train to the Mall area and wandered around for half a day. Saw about an hour’s worth of the Smithsonian. I wish I had more time to see stuff but I won’t. I’d like to meet with my members of Congress, too, but I won’t be there on those specified constituent days. After all the letters I’ve written them I’m not sure their staff would schedule me anyway hahaha.

Poetry News For January 7, 2008

Poetry News:

— Liam O’Gallagher, 90, a Beat Avant-Gardist and Teacher, Dies —

— A founding co-editor of the journal L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, he is the author of over 30 books of poetry and a collection of innovative critical essays, … —

— The “Iliad” and “Odyssey” of medieval Persia is presented in a hefty new English translation —

— Must we admire the poet to honor his work? —

— Here then is a justification of the humanities that is neither strained (reading poetry contributes to the state’s bottom line) nor crassly careerist —

— ‘Our World’ by Mary Oliver —

— Charles Simic sets scenes, probes inner realm in new collection ‘Sixty Poems’ —

— Shel Silverstein, 1930-1999: Poet, Writer, Composer, Singer, Musician and Artist —

Poetry News for September 28, 2007

Poetry News:

— Charles Simic Takes Your Questions on Poetry [link found here thank you] —

— In 1923, after falling in love with a blond, blue eyed sailor, Hart Crane wrote his most ambitious poem to date —

— Kay Ryan rises to the top despite her refusal to compromise —

— I sure do love poems by kids —

— Charles Simic: From Belgrade to Poet Laureate —

— Elevating baseball to a fine art —

Me, listening to song: Honey is that you playing on this?
Darryl, listening to song: I don’t remember recording that.
Me: Well it says you did.
Darryl: Well I guess I did, then.

LOL. Get it while it is hot, and thank you person who posted it.

Poetry News for August 12, 2007

Poetry News:

— “That letters, words and sentences are all involved in reading is nothing new, but finding that their contributions to reading rate is additive is startling” —

— Borges and Lowell —

— Shhh, the ‘poetry librarian’ is in town —

— Eight Poems by Pierre Reverdy —

— English literature, as we know it, begins with the works of two great poets who wrote in London during the second half of the 14th century: Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland —

— Complete Minimal Poems by Aram Saroyan —

— For example, here is a fairly recent Simic self-portrait —

— Saginaw celebrates poet —

— why are Nick Laird’s poems so sombre? —

My web host moved this site to a newer server. I think everything is working OK?

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“In a stunning follow-up to the attack on Taslima Nasreen by Muslim activists, the Hyderabad police on Saturday booked the exiled Bangladeshi author for promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, language ” a charge that can get her two years in prison, if proven. The attackers are roaming freely, charged with minor misdemeanours.” [more]

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Got my hair CUT OFF Saturday. Maybe it isn’t such a good idea to go to the salon when you have slid into surgical menopause hahaha? Speaking of which, I am taking a break from the internet for a bit because the world is really starting to piss me off (more) & I need to hibernate & straighten my brain. See you in a bit. Have a poem xoxo:

Remedy
(for Sylvia Plath)

This cure is a quake of the brain. In a cracked
room sits a cracked bell, convalescent. Shaken
until erased, I seek a grand plan, yet

fail without ceremony. I’m simply an immigrant
in a monochrome country. The doctors are delinquent
to tender this gift (spark-volts,

spark-lids): even the shadows sleepwalk
inside the ruinous afternoon. Suddenly I am
at the kitchen table. Suddenly I am

an oracle, inconsequent. In an electric
mist, I smell hot wire and I smell possession.
The ink of my pen is shaping a rook,

arranging and rearranging his feathers
in the rain. I feel the flare of an angel
at my elbow. I feel her random descent.