Eyes Fastened With Pins (Charles Simic)

I started this blog as a way of getting more exposure to poetry and to stretch, intellectually, a bit. Charles Simic is an example of a poet who I have been introduced to through this blog. I really like his poetry because it is simple and yet conveys a grandness beneath the veneer. An example - today's poem. You can also search for his name on the lower right where I have included a list of every poet I've talked about. The names are ranked by their frequency. So many (talented) names!

Anyhoo, today's poem is about death - the personification of death - the humanizing of the concept. In the beginning, I was getting bugged by this poem - many of the images are cliches and I have a personal dislike of beginning every line with a capital. But then with the last image, I get that death is everyone's partner (life's partner = true!). That maybe the earlier cliches are appropriate since isn't a cliche just a commonly repeated truth? Sounds like death itself is the biggest cliche, so why not emphasize that by having stuff like these lines:

The little
Wife always alone
Ironing death's laundry.
The beautiful daughters

Setting death's supper table.
The neighbors playing
Pinochle in the backyard
Or just sitting on the steps
Drinking beer.

Perhaps, there is no escaping death, so there is no escaping cliches? I dunno, or maybe this is just a weak poem. Maybe I am stretching too much. What do you think?

Favorite line: "Undressing slowly, sleepily, / And stretching naked / On death's side of the bed."

Undressing slowly, sleepily, And stretching naked

The little Wife always alone Ironing death's laundry. The beautiful daughters Setting death's supper table. The neighbors playing Pinochle in the backyard Or just sitting on the steps Drinking beer. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15259#sthash.AepVqxX8.dpuf

The little Wife always alone Ironing death's laundry. The beautiful daughters Setting death's supper table. The neighbors playing Pinochle in the backyard Or just sitting on the steps Drinking beer. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15259#sthash.AepVqxX8.dpuf

The little Wife always alone Ironing death's laundry. The beautiful daughters Setting death's supper table. The neighbors playing Pinochle in the backyard Or just sitting on the steps Drinking beer. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15259#sthash.AepVqxX8.dpuf

The little Wife always alone Ironing death's laundry. The beautiful daughters Setting death's supper table. The neighbors playing Pinochle in the backyard Or just sitting on the steps Drinking beer. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15259#sthash.AepVqxX8.dpuf

On this Very Street in Belgrade (Charles Simic)

Charles Simic's 'On this Very Street in Belgrade' is a short tight poem about N telling 'you' that this very spot was the location for so many epochs in 'your' life. From infancy to mentally unbalanced, homeless adulthood - sometimes your whole life can be contained in one location, one city block. Well, okay, perhaps not fully, but the sentiment is the same - you always seem to begin and end in the same location - and perhaps, in life, nothing else is worth telling - a life that can be summed up in nine lines.

Guh, I don't mean to be so harsh. I mean, it's rather neat that 'your' life can be stripped down to such a tight block of text and yet still give details about 'your' entire life - its beginnings and endings.

Favorite line: "Where you now stood years later / Talking to a homeless dog"

Where you now stood years later
Talking to a homeless dog, - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23432#sthash.OVjVkJYT.dpufW

Fear (Charles Simic)

While there are two Charles Simic poems at the link, I only want to talk about one - Fear.

One because it is short. And two because it seems so simple - almost as though he had a thought and wrote it down verbatim. I like that sense of happenstance.

I've definitely seen what he is describing. Though, it's odd because I think of spring tree leaves doing this and during those times fear is far my mind. But because of the emotion, I retroactively imagine the tree to be dry and dead - late fall. Fear for a fall scene.

Like there are in this poem, when present, I like to read each short line (title included) as a poem-within-a-poem. Here, they yield: " Fear / Unknowing / To another. ". And that actually stands by itself as a mini-definition of fear. Neat-o.

Favorite line: "Fear passes from man to man / Unknowing"

My Shoes (Charles Simic)

'You never truly know someone until you've walked a mile in his shoes.' That well trod (pardon the pun) idiom must have been an inspiration for this poem by Charles Simic. "Shoes, secret face of my inner life"

I'm not a shoe lover, so honestly, I don't really see shoes, pieces of your wardrobe, as windows to your psyche. Maybe in the same way that your shirt or your socks are entries to Who You Are, I can see shoes as representing some part of a person.

However, I get that C. Sim thinks so: "With your mute patience, forming/The only true likeness of myself." Windows, mirrors. Shoes are the key.

Apparently.

Favorite line: "Ascetic and maternal, you endure:/Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned men"

In the Library (Charles Simic)

In the Library by Charles Simic.

"I hear nothing, but she does." I don't believe N. N definitely hears the voices of the books. Else, N would not have taken the time to write this poem after finding a barely read tome. He listened to the unread book and chose to make it more well known, to bring it to our attention. He cares, just as Miss Jones does.

Lives devoted to little known pursuits. Hers to books that haven't been read in half a century. His to (some would say) esoteric poetry (though, not me. Keep it active and in your life!).

Favorite line: "She's very tall, so she keeps/Her head tipped as if listening."

The Something (Charles Simic)

I like Charles Simic. I do. I like the simplicity with which he writes. I like the 'woah, that's a big point' you get at the end of one of his poems which, of course, is written with such simple diction.

I like that he titled this poem The Something. It's emblematic of what I meant earlier. It's so simple. Perhaps, knowingly too simple. It seems false. It must be hiding something. You know to look for a deeper point. It's in there, you only have to find it.

Or is it? Haha, Mr. Simic. I see your game now. You, like that poem before, are challenging me by chiding me for seeing patterns and meaning where none are meant. Well, bosh. Humans hate chaos. We hate disarray. Looking at the universe and finding it "immense and incomprehensible" is it any wonder that we turn to poetry, "this fine old prop", and try to pull the edges together in order to form, well, "something"?

Favorite line: "What they thought about/Stayed the same,/Stayed immense and incomprehensible."

Watermelons (Charles Simic)

The thing about this blog is that it must be updated every day. (What was I thinking? Ah well. A promise is a promise. Even one made to myself.)

So I haven't known about Charles Simic for long, but since I really enjoyed his last poem I read and talked about I thought I would turn to him once again. And I managed to find his short(est?) one. Watermelons is only 15 words long. Which is sort of funny since watermelons are the giants of the fruit world.

This is a metaphor-ful poem. I thought it was apt to compare a watermelon to a smile. That is how the rind appears after the fruit has been eaten. Though, it does seem like he's calling the +fruit a smile. I don't really see that, but the image and connection are still there for me. I also thought it was spot-on to compare a watermelon to Buddha. Rounded bellies.

Don't get the larger point, but I don't think a poem always needs one or even has one. Perhaps the simplicity in Buddhism is reflected by this 15-word verse.

Favorite line: "Green Buddhas/On the fruit stand."

Country Fair (Charles Simic)

I was unable to write a post yesterday because the internet connection at my house died. It magically restored itself at about midday today, so now I'm back at it. The poet for today I had no idea of until the leader of my workshop mentioned him in passing one day. I haven't spent much time with this poem, so all comments will be very off-the-cuff.

The poem is so simple. It could easily be written out in prose. I'm not lost at all when it comes to what went on. That, by itself, is a show of great writing. What I like in the poem is that the "whole show" includes both the dog, running after a stick, and the couple, drunk and laughing. That the show (and for that matter, the poem) allows for space to think of "other things" -- like the couple, their drunkenness and their lust is kind of great.

The country fair and poems are similar. They both start out showing one particular thing--"six-legged dog," "Country Fair," but they do so in such ways that the viewer/the reader can meander from the stated topic and get what they can from the show. Is it wrong that N focused as much on the kissing couple as he did the dog? Is it wrong that instead of getting that the poem is a picture of the country fair, I see a bigger point?

Favorite line: "If you didn't see the six-legged dog,/It doesn't matter."