You know how difficult it is to write good poetry? Or even okay poetry? Really fucking difficult. That's why I feel bad rating this lowly, because it's not bad at all. Just not my thing. There were a few nice turns of phrase here and there.

Short poems that focus on short-lived images, making you feel all warm, cozy and tingly on the inside. Some works better than others.ThusThe long day has ended in which so muchAnd so little happened.Great hopes were dashed,Then halfheartedly restored once again.Mirrors became animated and emptied,Obeying the whims of chance.The hands of the church clock moved,At times gently, at times violently.Night fell. The brain and its mysteries Deepened. The red neon signFIREWORKS FOR SALE came on a roofOf...

Since I was feeling let down by the quality of the last two items I returned, unfinished, to the library (Halt & Catch Fire Season 2 yesterday, The Caveman's Valentine today) it seemed like a good time to finish something whose quality hadn't been an issue when I left it idling. It was waiting for me on the shelf as I figured it would be. Read a few pages about quiet and light while I walked home in the oddly-dark late morning. Got to the bunch about New York and aging going up the drive, then s...

Because all things write their own stories / No matter how humbleNobody has the ability to extract the soul of everyday existence and transcribe it into beautifully surreal, luminous prose quite like Charles Simic. Former poet laureate to the United States and Pulitzer prize winner, Mr. Simic returns in print with his 2015 collection The Lunatic, published simultaneously alongside his collected essays in The Life of Images: Selected Prose, and it is certainly cause for cerebral celebration. The

Simic's poems are beyond beautiful. I am grateful to live in a world where these poems exist.

My habit of snapping up each Simic book as it appears reminds me of the guy who always orders the same dish in the same restaurant long after the flavor's familiar and any surprise is gone. After 30 years, it's difficult to distinguish one book from the next; but some elemental need is satisfied.With Simic there's always the same harrowed constellations turning slowly in the kaleidoscope, too tired to terrify, occasionally dazzling, underscored by the base note of melancholy. There's the cluster...

Gorgeous poems made of minimal, enigmatic figures.

Charles Simic is one of my favorite poets. So it pains me to say this is not a very good book. At all.I should know better by now. It seems to be the rule rather than the exception that the very late books by the greatest poets I know disappoint me. Some recent cases in point: Gerald Stern's In Beauty Bright, Stephen Dunn's Lines of Defense, Louise Gluck's Faithful and Virtuous Night (I'm no sure how it won the awards it did). I am not trying to be mean spirited. I owe so much to Simic. But when...

I grabbed this from the local library as I have recently been much more interested in reading writers from the same countries as my family. Charles Simic came to the USA from Yugoslavia about the same time my family came to Canada from Yugoslavia. This is the first time I have read anything from him. It was... Okay?The Lunatic has a few poems that I connected with, that made me stop and think. I don't think I really disliked any, but a lot of it was just really not my style, and I didn't feel li...

This rating/review is based on an ARC I got from work.I enjoyed this quite a bit and I'm glad I grabbed it off the ARC shelf. This is the first work by Simic I've read, and I think I'll read some more of his work (specifically, his Pulitzer prize-winning The World Doesn't End if not more). These aren't especially difficult poems, which is how I feel about some of the poetry books I pick up off the ARC shelf. These are lovely, lively, clever poems that have suck with me quite a bit.This also is p...

I like Simic, but I'm glad I borrowed this instead of buying it. I'm wondering why this collection is so absent of strong craft or interesting content or even the sharp wit he's known for. Does one not feel the need to try as hard once they've won enough awards? Maybe I'm just out of the loop on "old dude" poetry. But there's very little that's memorable about The Lunatic, and I immediately had to pull one of Simic's old, good collections off the shelf after reading this to get the taste of it o...

My first Simic; apparently, not the one to start with. Will have to go back and check out some of his earlier work.

The Lunatic is a collection of poems published in 2015 that I finally go to during the time of Covid. Charles Simic, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize as well as many other literary awards, is known for his wry melancholic tone that never falls into maudlin self-pity because he is also quite sardonically funny! This collection features mostly short, succinct poems that capture moments of human experience with incredible depth of feeling for their brevity such as found in "The Dictionary"Maybe there...

Favorite quotes:"Our thoughts like it quietIn this no-bird dawn,Like the way the early lightTakes the world as it finds itAnd makes no comment""Have you introduced yourself to yourselfThe way a visitor at your door would?Have you found a seat in your roomFor every one of your wayward selves.""A word for the way the early lightTakes delight in chasing the darkness""When the wind off the lakeStirs the trees' memoriesAgainst the fading daylightWith an outpouring of tenderness--Or could it be anguis...

Simic's verse is fun and sharp and smart. The poems of The Lunatic are funny, surreal, tender, and insightful, thinking about religion, interpersonal relationships, kindness, sadness, and more. I especially liked "The Horse," "Vices of the Evening", "Dead Telephone", "Oh, Memory", "The Stray", "Black Butterfly", "The New Widow", "What the Old Lady Told Me", and "The White Labyrinth".The poems are sardonic, like "Black Butterfly":Ghost ship of my life,Weighted down by coffinsSailing outOn the eve...

Some good bits, but not the strongest collection. However I do appreciate Simic's brevity, clarity, eye.My favorite poem from the collection: “The Dictionary”Maybe there is a word in it somewhereto describe the world this morning,a word for the way the early lighttakes delight in chasing the darknessout of store windows and doorways.Another word for the way it lingersover a pair of wire-rimmed glassessomeone let drop on the sidewalklast night and staggered off blindlytalking to himself or breaki...

It is hard to know what the author means in his title.  Given the generally symbolic nature of the author's poetry [1], something that is pretty easy to understand, who exactly is the author referring to as a lunatic?  Is the author saying that the artist is a lunatic for being sensitive enough to what is going on to wonder about the private life of fleas and rats and the more unseemly aspects of the world that fill the attention of the author here?  Is it the world that is made up of lunatics,

Sometimes, an emotion crops up that is so complex that you don't know fully where it came from or what it's comprised of. It is so specific that you can say with 100% assurance that there cannot be a word for it. No word could do it justice. Instead, you go on pondering it, describing what it roughly resembles, paring it down by determining what it isn't, examining all those things it touches so you might at least witness the impressions it leaves behind it. For some time afterward, you'll walk

If you like things, please read yourself some Simic. If you hate things, you'll find perhaps a little respite here, but these are poems for people who E N J O Y. Perhaps they will even give you a little something to cling to when you are not in the mood for liking things. There's some sad-and-lonely in here, of course: that's life. But, that's not all life is. Sometimes it's the ludicrously morose followed up by something small and ridiculous (as with these poems: Simic will simply not allow for...

Charlie Simic is one of my very favorite poets. Nothing fancy here, folks, just a careful observation of life around him, and making quirky connections. I love how non-academic these poems are. They remind me of William Carlos Williams, but even more thoughtful. Closer to Dickinson. Solitaries who take the time to look carefully, record accurately, and twist what they see into making monumental sense to the rest of us. Plus being fun to read, so joyful.