NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� Charles Simic, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who awed critics and readers with his singular art of lyricism and economy, tragic insight and disruptive humor, has died at age 84.
The death of Simic, the country鈥檚 poet laureate from 2007-2008, was confirmed Monday by executive editor Dan Halpern at Alfred A. Knopf. He did not immediately provide additional details.
Author of dozens of books, Simic was ranked by many as among the greatest and most original poets of his time, one who didn鈥檛 write in English until well into his 20s. His bleak, but comic perspective was shaped in part by his years growing up in wartime Yugoslavia, leading him to observe that 鈥淭he world is old, it was always old.鈥� His poems were usually short and pointed, with surprising and sometimes jarring shifts in mood and imagery, as if to mirror the cruelty and randomness he had learned early on.
In 鈥淭wo Dogs,鈥� Simic writes of how one dog in 鈥渟ome Southern town鈥� and another in the New Hampshire woods reminded him of a 鈥渓ittle white dog鈥� who became 鈥渆ntangled鈥� in the feet of marching German soldiers. 鈥淩eading History鈥� is a sketch of the 鈥渧ast, dark and impenetrable鈥� skies for those 鈥渓ed to their death.鈥� In 鈥淗elp Wanted,鈥� life is a cosmic joke, and the narrator a willing dupe:
They asked for a knife
I come running
They need a lamb
I introduce myself as the lamb
But Simic also loved wordplay (鈥淭he insomniac鈥檚 brain is a choo-choo train鈥�), catcalls (鈥淎merica, I shouted at the radio/Even at 2 a.m. you are a loony bin!鈥�) and the interplay of great thoughts and everyday follies: 鈥淲hat was that fragment of Heraclitus/You were trying to remember/As you stepped on the butcher鈥檚 cat?鈥� he wrote in 鈥淭he Friends of Heraclitus.鈥� In 鈥淭ransport,鈥� sex becomes a near-literal feast of the senses:
In the frying pan
On the stove
I found my love
And me naked
Chopped onions
Fell on our heads
And made us cry
It鈥檚 like a parade,
I told her, confetti
When some guy
Reaches the moon
His notable books included 鈥淭he World Doesn鈥檛 End,鈥� winner of the Pulitzer in 1990; 鈥淲alking the Black Cat,鈥� a National Book Award finalist in 1996; 鈥淯nending Blues鈥� and such recent collections as 鈥淭he Lunatic鈥� and 鈥淪cribbled in the Dark.鈥� In 2005, he received the Griffin Poetry Prize and was praised by judges as 鈥渁 magician, a conjuror,鈥� master of 鈥渁 disarming, deadpan precision, which should never be mistaken for simplicity.鈥� He was fluent in several languages and translated the works of other poets from French, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian.
His 2022 collection 鈥淣o Land in Sight" presented a dark vision of contemporary life, such as the poem 鈥淐ome Spring鈥� and its warning: 鈥淒on't let that birdie in the tree/Fool you with its pretty song/The wicked are back from hell."
In 1964, Simic married fashion designer Helene Dubin, with whom he had two children. He became an American citizen in 1971 and two years later joined the faculty of the University of New Hampshire, where he remained for decades.
Born Dusan Simic in Belgrade in 1938, the year before World War II began, he would describe his youth as 鈥渁 small, nonspeaking part/In a bloody epic.鈥� His father fled to Italy in 1942 and was apart from the family for years. Home was so oppressive that Simic came to see the war as a needed escape.
鈥淭he war ended the day before May 9, 1945, which happened to be my birthday,鈥� he told the Paris Review in 2005. 鈥淚 was playing in the street. I went up to the apartment to get a drink of water where my mother and our neighbors were listening to the radio. They said, 鈥榃ar is over,鈥� and apparently I looked at them puzzled and said, 鈥楴ow there won鈥檛 be any more fun!鈥� In wartime, there鈥檚 no parental supervision; the grown-ups are so busy with their lives, the kids can run free.鈥�
Simic would refer to Hitler and Stalin as his 鈥渢ravel agents.鈥� Nazi rule gave way to Soviet-backed oppression and Simic emigrated to France with his mother and brother in the mid-1950s, then soon to the U.S. His family settled in Chicago, where his high school was once attended by Ernest Hemingway, and he became interested in poetry 鈥� for the art and for the girls. His parents unable to pay for college, he spent a decade working at jobs ranging from a payroll clerk to house painter while taking night classes at the University of Chicago and eventually New York University, from which he graduated in 1966 with a degree in Russian studies.
His first book, 鈥淲hat the Grass Says," came out in 1967. He followed with 鈥淪omewhere Among Us a Stone is Taking Notes鈥� and 鈥淒ismantling the Silence,鈥� and was soon averaging a book a year. A New York Times review from 1978 would note his gift for conveying 鈥渁 complex of perceptions and feelings鈥� in just a few lines.
鈥淥f all the things ever said about poetry, the axiom that less is more has made the biggest and the most lasting impression on me,鈥� Simic told Granta in 2013. 鈥淚 have written many short poems in my life, except 鈥榳ritten鈥� is not the right word to describe how they came into existence. Since it鈥檚 not possible to sit down and write an eight-line poem that鈥檒l be vast for its size, these poems are assembled over a long period of time from words and images floating in my head.鈥�
Hillel Italie, The Associated Press
