I'm not a great fan of Pound or Zukofsky, but W.C. Williams is often thrown in there, and his work is what made me write poetry, and the Beats are often seen as descendants, and I like many of them.
The amazing, amazing, amazing Charles Simic. One of my very favorites. And has a poet ever said goodbye so perfectly? His last poem in his last book...
Sherman, Charlie was a master a transforming the strange and terrifying into a comic opera. I wish more poets would go back to the image, instead of writing what I would call "self-indulgent political talk poetry" in their efforts to be, or remain, significant.
Please share the post, if you are so inclined. Just hearing Charlie's voice reading his poem is worth the price of admission.
Yes. In one class I had with him we used an "anthology," and, in the course of the semester, Charlie often spoke the word "ontology," because, although being the poet of sausage and shoes, he also was student of philosophy. Since both those words came out sounding the same, we always had to pay attention to the context of what was being said.
Tom, I taught "Fear" every year as an object poem. And when I visited middle-school and high school classes, I used it to teach metaphor. It's an appropriate poem for our current political situation.
I haven't read "White" in awhile, but now I will most certainly have to.
I'm not a great fan of Pound or Zukofsky, but W.C. Williams is often thrown in there, and his work is what made me write poetry, and the Beats are often seen as descendants, and I like many of them.
The amazing, amazing, amazing Charles Simic. One of my very favorites. And has a poet ever said goodbye so perfectly? His last poem in his last book...
The Wind Has Died
My little boat,
Take care.
There is no
Land in sight.
Sherman, Charlie was a master a transforming the strange and terrifying into a comic opera. I wish more poets would go back to the image, instead of writing what I would call "self-indulgent political talk poetry" in their efforts to be, or remain, significant.
Please share the post, if you are so inclined. Just hearing Charlie's voice reading his poem is worth the price of admission.
Not bad for a poet with English
being his fourth language.
Yes. In one class I had with him we used an "anthology," and, in the course of the semester, Charlie often spoke the word "ontology," because, although being the poet of sausage and shoes, he also was student of philosophy. Since both those words came out sounding the same, we always had to pay attention to the context of what was being said.
Yes!
Amen to everything here , as usual. And RIP, Charlie, one of the rare genuinely good guys among the big deals.
Thanks, Syd.
I studied with Simic at Breadloft in the 70s. He influenced me enormously.
Thanks for this, Peter -- your discovery of those books on your boat ride -- very nearly my own. A revelation, a gift.
That's one of my favorite poems of yours, Peter.
One of my favorite Simic poems is atypically not comedic,
but rather a vivid metaphor from Dismantling the
Silence: Fear
"Fear passes from man to man
Unknowing,
As one leaf passes its shudder
To another.
All at once the whole tree is trembling
And there is no sign of the wind."
As long as I've got you here, Peter (hopefully I do), I'm
sure you've read Simic's fourth collection "White" -
*an extended poem* that places more interpretive pressure
than usual on the reader (at least on this one). Peter, what's your
take on "White"?
Tom, I taught "Fear" every year as an object poem. And when I visited middle-school and high school classes, I used it to teach metaphor. It's an appropriate poem for our current political situation.
I haven't read "White" in awhile, but now I will most certainly have to.
Simic said "White" represented the
end of his "object poems." Yet, his
next collection after "White",
Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk,
had several. Did you ever teach the
the Objectivist poets?