Come Closer and Listen

by Charles Simic

Overview

An insightful and haunting new collection from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic

Irreverent and sly, observant and keenly imagined, Come Closer and Listen is the latest work from one of our most beloved poets. With his trademark sense of humor, open-hearted empathy, and perceptive vision, Charles Simic roots his poetry in the ordinary world while still taking in the wide sweep of the human experience.

From poems pithy, wry, and cutting—“Time—that murderer/that no has caught yet”—to his layered reflections on everything from love to grief to the wonders of nature, from the story of St. Sebastian to that of a couple weeding side by side, Simic’s work continues to reveal to us an unmistakable voice in modern poetry. An innovator in form and a chronicler of both our interior lives and the people we are in the world, Simic remains one of our most important and lasting voices on the page.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062908476
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/14/2020
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	701,377
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Charles Simic was a poet, essayist, and translator who was born in Yugoslavia in 1938 and immigrated to the United States in 1954. He published more than twenty books of poetry, in addition to a memoir and numerous books of translations for which he received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Wallace Stevens Award. In 2007, he served as poet laureate of the United States. He was a distinguished visiting writer at New York University and professor emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, where he taught since 1973. He died in January 2023 at the age of eighty-four.

Table of Contents

I

Some Birds Chirp 3

Hide-and-Seek 4

Blind Fate 6

Come Closer and Listen 7

The Old Orphan 8

Skywalking 9

The Fall 10

Summer Night 11

Metaphysics Anonymous 12

Mad People 13

Soap Bubbles 14

Open Late 15

Psst 16

Astronomy Lesson 17

II

Something Evil Is Out There 21

Terror 22

After the Bombing 24

Arson 25

Greek Story 26

Strolling Players 27

You'll Be Pleased with Our Product 28

Light Sleeper 29

Monsters 31

In My Church 32

Among My Late Visitors 33

O Great Starry Sky 34

At Giubbe Rosse in Florence 35

Tugboat 36

The Last Lesson 37

III

Meditation in the Gutter 41

Strange Sweetness 42

My Little Heaven 43

Imponderabilia 44

Bed Music 45

The Henhouse Is on Fire 46

The Many Lauras 47

The American Dream 48

Among the Ruins 49

The Judgment 50

Birds of a Feather 51

Truck Stop 52

That Young Fellow 53

Hey, Loudmouth 54

It's a Day like Any Other 55

IV

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle 59

Sunday Service 60

Charmed Circle 61

Haystack 62

Birds at Dusk 63

Sit Tight 64

Late Night Quiz 65

Dice 66

Is That You? 67

Such at Least Is the Story 68

Taking a Breather 69

The Joke 70

After Saying Your Prayer 71

Ghost Ship 72

Last Picnic 74

Acknowledgments 75

Editorial Reviews

Simic...has always challenged and delighted his audience with writing that is beautiful and surreal and forces people to consider the validity of their own perceptions.” — Washington Post

“One of our finest poets... singularly engaging, eminently sane...” — New York Review of Books

“His poetry … is comic and elegiac in equal measure. It has an Old World sensibility…that he pins to a New World lightness of heart.” — Dwight Garner, New York Times

From the Publisher

Simic...has always challenged and delighted his audience with writing that is beautiful and surreal and forces people to consider the validity of their own perceptions.

Washington Post

Simic...has always challenged and delighted his audience with writing that is beautiful and surreal and forces people to consider the validity of their own perceptions.

Washington Post

His poetry … is comic and elegiac in equal measure. It has an Old World sensibility…that he pins to a New World lightness of heart.

Dwight Garner

One of our finest poets... singularly engaging, eminently sane...

New York Review of Books