'A poem is like a bank robbery: the idea is to get in, get their attention, get the money and get out.' - c.simicLABOR AND CAPITALThe softness of this hotel bedOn which we made loveDemonstrates to me in an impressive mannerThe superiority of capitalism.At the mattress factory I imagine,The employees are happy today.It's Sunday and they are workingExtra hours, like us, for no pay.Still, the way you open your legsand reach for me with your handMakes me think of the Revolution,Red banners, crowds c...

I've never understood the appeal of Selected Poetry or Stories collections, especially when an author releases multiple a la Bradbury and Harlan Ellison. The acceptable approach seems to be: Take your favorite ten poems from your favorite five previously published collections and slap on five new poems to justify the publication. A pet peeve of most bibliomaniacs, I imagine, is having the same pieces across multiple editions. Like when Vandermeer re-anthologized certain weird stories across mult...

I shouldn't have bought this. I should just buy each individual volume of Charles Simic's poetry. I love this, but I kick myself.

Surreal, fable-esque poems that jump out like art-film sequences in the mind. Exciting and always memorable, even terrifyingly resonant with difficult truths about the ever-mysterious nature of our everyday realities.

I don't know. Maybe even 3 1/2 stars, and I realize this puts me in a distinct minority. The problem with Simic, at least for me, is that he doesn't wear well in a collection this long. This particularly collection is probably the length of 3 or 4 normal collections. I found, after about the half way point, that the whole surreal mix & match, with a killer curve ball as an end line, seemed like a formula. Once I felt this, the poems kind of blurred together, their individual distinctness for the...

The Voice at 3:00 A.M. is a good overview of Simic's poetry spanning from 1986 to 2003 when the book was released. But it does often feel like an overture, as though there is more substance in waiting elsewhere. Simic writes poetry that makes you think at questions that you are led to ask on your own, and confront reality in ways that you most likely hadn't considered before. A good deal of Simic's poetry deals with mortality and a sense of things that can't quite be put into words -- at least,

Somehow I am missing the purpose of these poems. Maybe I didn’t spend enough time with each one, but none seemed to resonate quite like I hoped. I am envious of his ability to observe and capture moments. Maybe I will try another collection - found my way to his work from the landscape architect Laurie Olin’s excellent new book of essays.

A master.

i wanted to like these poems more than i did. i knew simic more for his translation work than his own, and the poems in this collection didn't quite do it for me. i didn't dislike any, and liked some, such as "The Lives of the Alchemists" and "Late September" and "My Father Attributed Immortality to Waiters." his palette just isn't to my taste: the christian images seem flat and something about the use and use and reuse of figures of the homeless and of beggars strikes me as more touristy than g...

#8 A book with a time of day in the titleI read a lot of Charles Simic when I was taking my poetry classes in undergrad and I found him very interesting. I've had this book sitting on the shelf for a while and figured this would be the best time to break it out and see if it was work keeping or not.Some of the poems were so-so, but there were a select few that made me pull out my little post-its so that I could go back and appreciate them later. All-in-all, I think this one has a permanent place...

No sooner have we made loveThan we are back in the kitchen.While I chop the hot peppers,She wiggles her assAnd stirs the shrimp on the stove.How good the wine tastesThat has run redOut of a laughing mouth!Down her chinAnd onto her naked tits.Surreal & sensual. Dark & nostalgic. This was my third Simic. It gave a nice overview of a large span of his work, although it may have been just a touch too long for this collection. He started to lose me a bit towards the end. However, there was a selectio...

I found this book of poetry, the first I ever read of Simic, at 18 years old, the year it was published. I consider it one of my favorite possessions, as though one could possess the words inside. Simic is hands down, my most beloved poet.

Much of Simic's poetry did nothing for me. Some too rambling, some too boring, some too vague, a few with strong beginnings but unsatisfying or uninteresting endings. Yet as if all of these were merely practice, this collection also contains some truly great poems (e.g. "Romantic Sonnet," "Country Fair," "The Secret") that ultimately worth the read, if not quite worth the purchase.

Funny, finishing this on the weekend when Congress plays with our clocks again (grr). Somewhere, around 3 a.m. when Charles Simic is up fighting insomnia, we will have lost an hour tomorrow. What a waste of a perfectly good hour!I don't know why I've been reading so much Simic lately, but I have. As this is a "Selected Late and New Poems," it's sure I've read some of these poems before, too, but ask me if I could pick them out of a police line-up.The "Late" poems come from books dating back to 1...

He deals in the sense of Heraclitus not being able to step into the same river twice. And of no man being an island and of all men being islands. And of any number of koans extolling the value of the present moment. Then back again to a twig brushing past Heraclitus's ankle, caught in the steady flow and getting harder to fix in the distance or in the mind's eye as eyesight and mind fail in perceptible gradations. And of there being nothing new under the sun. So if you can quote these things, wh...

So many dog eared pages, there was no point in dog earring the pages.

Simic is a modern master. A writer of romantic, charmingly lewd at times, profoundly real yet upbeat short free-form poetry that goes back to the wellspring of desire and fetches jewels of imperfect memory. His work is accessible in a way that makes me wonder why he isn't more famous.If poetry was money, this man would be president.

Charles Simic the author of "The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems" has a great style when it comes to writing. Even though most of his books are works of poetry he gives a great description of the landscape in each one really helping you visualize what you are reading, such as the "Office of an obscure weekly preaching bloody revolution" Which is from his poem Charm School. Unlike many other poets Simic keeps most of cities and countries nameless as well as most things from daily

A good introduction to Simic's poems. He writes about the most mundane objects in the most surreal ways. Lots of rich imagery and a hint of melancholia throughout. Looking forward to eventually tackling more of his work.

These are a collection of fine poems by Simic, one of my favorite poets. They're taken from several of his earlier book, with a handful of new poems added at the end. A good book to get acquainted with this accomplished poet if you have not read him before.