New and Selected Poems

It takes just one glimpse of Charles Simics work to establish that he is a master, ruler of his own eccentric kingdom of jittery syntax and signature insight. -Los Angeles Times For over fifty years, Charles Simic has been widely celebrated for his brilliant and innovative poetic imagery, his sardonic wit, and a voice all his own. He has been awarded nearly every major literary prize for his poetry, including a Pulitzer and a MacArthur grant, in addition to serving as the poet laureate of the United States in 2007 and 2008. In this new volume, he distills his lifes work, combining for the first time the best of his early poems with his later worksincluding nearly three dozen revisionsalong with seventeen new, never-before-published poems. Simics body of work draws inspiration from a range of topics, from the inscrutability of ordinary life to American blues, from folktales to marriage and war. Consistently exciting and unexpected, the nearly four hundred poems in this volume represent the best of one of Americas most distinguished and original poets.