« Me, a Podcast? | Main | Best of the Literary Web: PENNsound »

And the new poet laureate is...

...the wonderful Charles Simic!  Simic was named yesterday as the nation's 15th poet laureate.  According to James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, Mr. Simic was chosen because

“He’s very hard to describe, and that’s a great tribute to him. His poems have a sequence that you encounter in dreams, and therefore they have a reality that does not correspond to the reality that we perceive with our eyes and ears.”

I couldn't agree more.  One of my favorite Simic quotes comes from his essay, "The Power of Ambiguity," in which he states, "The secret of...art is not in what you put in, but in how much you leave out."  In another essay from this same collection (The Metaphysician in the Dark), he says simply, "My view is that poetry is inevitable, irreplaceable, and necessary as daily bread."  You gotta love that.  

Read the article, in which Simic also states that he largely began writing to impress girls, here

Posted on Friday, August 3, 2007 at 08:51AM by Registered CommenterAnna Lowe, Staff Writer in | Comments4 Comments

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

EmailEmail Article to Friend

Reader Comments (4)

I want to read him now for the sheer fact that he describes himself as a "city poet"...I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I sort of do...perhaps this is the ambiguity that most of his work evokes?
August 3, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterMehdi
Didn't we all start writing to impress girls?
August 3, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterjsealy
How's that working out for you, Jon?
August 3, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterAnna
Pretty well, I'd say.
August 9, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterEmily

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
All HTML will be escaped. Hyperlinks will be created for URLs automatically.