DOCSLIB.ORG

The Poetry of Charles Simic

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Poetry of Charles Simic View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by RERO DOC Digital Library Dissertation to fulfil the requirements for the doctorate in the Faculty of Letters of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland Orphan of Silence: The Poetry of Charles Simic By Goran Mijuk Accepted by the Faculty of Letters at the request of Professor Robert Rehder and Professor Anthony Mortimer. Fribourg, February 1, 2002. Professor Marcel Piérart, Dean. 2 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S Acknowledgements 3 List of Abbreviations 4 - 5 Preface 6 - 7 Chronology of Charles Simic’s Life 8 - 11 I Orphan of Silence: An Introduction 12 - 31 II Translation 32 - 52 III Dismantling the Silence 53 - 78 IV Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk 79 -105 V Unending Blues 106-134 VI Hotel Insomnia 135-161 VII Wonderful Words, Silent Truth 162-176 Bibliography 177-184 3 A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S I would first like to thank my parents who have never stopped reminding me that without their help I would not have been able to juggle the challenges of working full time for the Reuters News Agency, writing a doctoral thesis and keeping my household in order. I am grateful for the support they have given me. It has made my life comfortable even in difficult times. I would also like to thank Prof. Robert Rehder, who has helped in innumerable instances to improve this work and who has shown me that reworking a paper might be a painful task but that any such effort is worthwhile. His thinking and writing about literature has been of tremendous help for my personal and professional development. My sister Gordana and my friends Judith Huber and Carey Sargent, who volunteered to read this work, took great pains to help me improve this thesis and I am very grateful for their assistance. A special thanks goes to all my friends who have patiently endured my bad temper after staying awake whole nights working on the thesis. I met the poet Charles Simic only when I had nearly finished this thesis on his poetry. Our meeting took place in Berlin in the summer of 2001. During the afternoon we were together we hardly talked about literature. We discussed the stock market, the climate in Berlin, the "Buletten", a typical local meat dish, that reminded us of a similar dish back in Yugoslavia and we talked about the war in our homeland. He told me about his family, his life in the United States and his busy schedule. It was an afternoon full of jokes and laughter. What surprised me most was Mr. Simic’s openness towards a young man he did not know. I did not have the impression of meeting a stranger. He was the person I hoped to meet: full of humour, intelligence and understanding. It was a pleasure to meet him and the pleasure of reading his poetry has increased all the more. 4 L I S T O F A B B R E V I A T I O N S Except for the works listed below, a full reference is given in the footnotes the first time that a work is cited, after which a shorter form is used. Poetry: WGS What the Grass Says, Santa Cruz, Kayak, 1967. SAUSTN Somewhere Among Us a Stone is Taking Notes, Santa Cruz, Kayak, 1969. DS Dismantling the Silence, New York, Braziller, 1971. W White, New York, New River Press, 1972. RPLGM Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk, New York, Braziller, 1974 BL Biography and a Lament, Poems 1961-1967, Hartford, Conn., Bartholomew’s Cobble, 1976. CG Charon’s Cosmology, New York, Braziller, 1977. CB Classic Ballroom Dances, New York, Braziller, 1980. A Austerities, New York, Braziller, 1982. WFUV Weather Forecast for Utopia & Vicinity, Poems 1967-1982, Barrytown, N.Y., Station Hill Press, 1983. UB Unending Blues, San Diego, Harcourt Brace, 1986. WDE The World Doesn’t End, San Diego, Harcourt Brace, 1989. TBGD The Book of Gods and Devils, San Diego, Harcourt Brace, 1990. SP Selected Poems, 1963-1983: Revised and Expanded, New York, Braziller, 1990. HI Hotel Insomnia, San Diego, Harcourt Brace, 1992. 5 WH A Wedding in Hell, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1994. WBC Walking the Black Cat, San Diego, Harcourt Brace, 1996. J Jackstraws, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1999. Essays: UC The Uncertain Certainty: Interviews, Essays, and Notes on Poetry, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1985. WWST Wonderful Words, Silent Truth: Essays on Poetry and a Memoir, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1990. UFT The Unemployed Fortune-Teller: Essays and Memoirs, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1994. OF Orphan Factory, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1997. 6 P R E F A C E Asked about the "greatest myth about poetry that has been perpetrated upon the readers of poetry" in an interview with the literary journal Crazy Horse in 1972, the poet Charles Simic answers, that this myth "must be the idea that a poem can be fully explicated, and in prose. I sense an immense terror behind that need. Get rid of mystery, out with complexity and imagination! A totalitarian impulse" (UC 9). My impulse to write this work is not totalitarian and I do not believe that I can fully explicate Simic’s poetry. I agree with Simic that poetry defies any attempt to be explained completely. Though an analysis can unveil some of the content of a poem, the analysis itself lacks the vital qualities of the poem: the tone, the sound and the choice of words. The experience of reading a poem remains mysterious. However, there is an undeniable impulse to solve the mystery of a poem and to understand its complexity. I am fascinated by Simic’s work and I wish to move nearer to it by thinking and writing about his poetry and his prose. The experience of reading a poem is not enough to understand a poet’s work. By writing about it, we discover more. Too many things float away and go unnoticed while reading a poem. Although writing about poetry will not ultimately solve the mystery of poetry, it can at least draw us nearer to it. My intention in this work is to look at Simic’s development from his first book of poetry, What the Grass Says (1967), until Jackstraws (1999). I do not wish to pin Simic down as a surrealist, imagist nor realist. The focus is on the analysis of individual poems. Simultaneously, I attempt to put the analysed poems into relation with his work as a whole. The thesis is structured in chronological order. The work is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter concentrates on Simic’s idea of poetry. In this part, "The Orphan of Silence: An Introduction", I rely mainly on interviews and essays in order to explain Simic’s understanding of poetry. I also refer to some of his poems to strengthen the argument. The main focus lies on the notion "orphan of silence". In the second chapter, "Translation", the focus is on Simic’s reading experience and his thinking about translation and how this process has influenced his idea of poetry. In "Dismantling the Silence", the central idea of silence and its impact on his poetry is discussed. In contrast to the first and second chapters, the focus shifts towards the analysis of individual poems. In this part of the book, What the Grass Says (1967), Somewhere Among Us a Stone is Taking Notes (1969), Dismantling the Silence (1971) and White (1972) are analysed. In the fourth chapter, "Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk", I focus on the importance of biography, history and war for the understanding of Simic’s poetry and, simultaneously, I try to show how his 7 poetry has developed in comparison to his earlier work. This chapter spans the years from 1974 to 1982 and comprises the four books Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk (1974), Charon’s Cosmology (1977), Classic Ballroom Dances (1980) and Austerities (1982). In "Unending Blues", the fifth chapter of the thesis, Simic’s relation to blues and jazz music takes centre stage. In this part of the work the importance of issues such as poverty or social inequality is analysed. In "Unending Blues", the books Weather Forecast for Utopia & Vicinity (1983), Unending Blues (1986), The World Doesn’t End (1989) and The Book of Gods and Devils (1990) are summarised. In "Hotel Insomnia", I will look at the books Hotel Insomnia (1992), A Wedding in Hell (1994), Walking the Black Cat (1996) and Jackstraws (1999). In this chapter I attempt to show that while most of Simic’s recent poetry has not changed radically as far as ideas are concerned, his language has changed subtly in this most recent period of his career. Moreover, I intend to pay particular attention to Simic’s attitude towards the war in former Yugoslavia. In the last chapter, "Wonderful Words, Silent Truth: A Conclusion", I try to summarise the previous chapters and I intend to put Simic’s work in the context of contemporary American poetry. Throughout the work I make references to Simic’s essays and interviews. I also try to comment upon his style constantly and show how language and form develop. 8 C H R O N O L O G Y O F C H A R L E S S I M I C’S L I F E 1938 Born May 9 in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, to George Simic, an engineer, and Helen Matijević Simic.1 1954 Simic leaves Yugoslavia with his mother and brother to join his father in New York.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • CV, Full Format
    BENJAMIN PALOFF (1/15/2013) Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures 507 Bruce Street University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 48103 3040 MLB, 812 E. Washington (617) 953-2650 Ann Arbor, MI 48109 [email protected] EDUCATION Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures, June 2007. M.A. in Slavic Languages and Literatures, November 2002. Dissertation: Intermediacy: A Poetics of Unfreedom in Interwar Russian, Polish, and Czech Literatures, a comparative treatment of metaphysics in Eastern European Modernism, 1918-1945. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry, April 2001. Thesis: Typeface, a manuscript of poems. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts B.A., magna cum laude with highest honors in field, Slavic Languages and Literatures, June 1999. Honors thesis: Divergent Narratives: Affinity and Difference in the Poetry of Zbigniew Herbert and Miroslav Holub, a comparative study. TEACHING Assistant Professor, Departments of Slavic Languages and Literatures and of Comparative Literature, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2007-Present). Courses in Polish and comparative Slavic literatures, critical theory, and translation. Doctoral Dissertation Committees in Slavic Languages and Literatures: Jessica Zychowicz (Present), Jodi Grieg (Present), Jamie Parsons (Present). Doctoral Dissertation Committees in Comparative Literature: Sylwia Ejmont (2008), Corine Tachtiris (2011), Spencer Hawkins (Present), Olga Greco (Present). Doctoral Dissertation Committees in other units: Ksenya Gurshtein (History of Art, 2011). MFA Thesis Committee in English/Creative Writing: Francine Harris (2011). Faculty Associate, Frankel Center for Jewish Studies (2009-Present); Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (2007-Present). Service: Steering Committee, Copernicus Endowment for Polish Studies (2007-Present).
    [Show full text]
  • After Miłosz: Polish Poetry in the 20Th and the 21Th Century Chicago, Chopin Theatre, 9/30 –10/3 2011
    After Miłosz: Polish Poetry In the 20th and the 21th Century Chicago, Chopin Theatre, 9/30 –10/3 2011 THE FESTIVAL The Chicago's literary festival titled After Milosz: Polish Poetry in the 20th and 21th Century is the largest presentation of Polish poetry in the United States this year. The festival celebrates the year of Czeslaw Milosz and commemorates the centennial anniversary of the birth of the Nobel Prize winner. The event goes beyond a familiar formula of commenting the work of the poet and offers a broader view on the contemporary Polish poetry. Besides the academic conference dedicated to Milosz's work, and a panel with the greatest America poets (Jorie Graham, Charles Simic) remembering the artist and discussing his influence on American poetry, the program includes readings of the most talented modern Polish poets of three generations. From the best known (Zagajewski, Sommer) to the most often awarded young writer nowadays, Justyna Bargielska. An important part of the festival will be two concerts: the opening show will present the best Polish rappers FISZ and EMADE whose songs are inspired by Polish poetry; another concert will present one of the best jazz singers in the world, Patricia Barber, who will perform especially for this occasion. The main organizers of the festival are the Fundation of Tygodnik Powszechny magazine and the Joseph Conrad International Literary Festival in Krakow, for which the Chicago festival is a portion of the larger international project for promoting Polish literature abroad. The co- organizer of the festival is the Head of the Slavic Department at University of Illinois at Chicago, Professor Michal Pawel Markowski, who represents also the Polish Interdisciplinary Program at UIC supported by The Hejna Fund, and also serves as the artistic director to the Conrad Festival.
    [Show full text]
  • U.S. Poet Laureate Appointment Charles Simic Cleopatra's Needle
    ® ® FOLLY SEPTEMBERSEPTEMBER 2007 2007 U.S. Poet Laureate Appointment Charles Simic Cleopatra’s Needle Drawn in Dust Jan Wurm © 2007 Follymag 1 www.follymag.com ® SEPTEMBERAPRIL 20072007 FOLLY FEATURES U.S. Poet Laureate Appointment 3 Charles Simic Central Park’s Obelisk 6 Cleopatra’s Needle Drawn in Dust 8 Jan Wurm FOLLY is published monthly. All material is compiled from sources believed to be reliable but published without responsibility for errors or omissions. Material in this publication cannot be reproduced. However, the publication can be distributed and shared, in its entirety. For submissions, please contact [email protected]. Folly is not responsible for the return of unsolicited material. © 2007 Folly 2 www.follymag.com ® FOLLY SEPTEMBER 2007 highly organized poetry with shades of darkness and flashes of ironic Charles Simic humor." Appointed Poet Charles Simic was born in Yugoslavia on May 9, 1938. His childhood was Laureate complicated by the events of World War II. He moved to Paris with his mother when he was 15; a year later, they joined his father in New York Librarian of Congress James H. and then moved to Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, where he graduated Billington announced the from the same high school as Ernest Hemingway. Simic attended the appointment of Charles Simic to University of Chicago, working nights in an office at the Chicago Sun be the Library’s 15th Poet Times, but was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961 and served until 1963. Laureate Consultant in Poetry on He earned his bachelor's degree from New York University in 1966.
    [Show full text]
  • CITY LIGHTS PUBLISHERS CELEBRATING 60 YEARS 1955-2015 261 Columbus Ave | San Francisco, CA 94133
    CITY LIGHTS PUBLISHERS CELEBRATING 60 YEARS 1955-2015 261 Columbus Ave | San Francisco, CA 94133 Juan Felipe Herrera has been appointed the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States for 2015-2016! Forthcoming from City Lights this September will be Herrera’s new collection of poems titled Notes on the Assemblage. Herrera, who succeeds Charles Wright as Poet Laureate, said of the appointment, “This is a mega-honor for me, for my family and my parents who came up north before and after the Mexican Revolution of 1910—the honor is bigger than me. I want to take everything I have in me, weave it, merge it with the beauty that is in the Library of Congress, all the resources, the guidance of the staff and departments, and launch it with the heart-shaped dreams of the people. It is a miracle of many of us coming together.” Herrera joins a long line of distinguished poets who have served in the position, including Natasha Trethewey, Philip Levine, W. S. Merwin, Kay Ryan, Charles Simic, Donald Hall, Ted Kooser, Louise Glück, Billy Collins, Stanley Kunitz, Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass and Rita Dove. The new Poet Laureate is the author of 28 books of poetry, novels for young adults and collections for children, most recently Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes (2014), a picture book showcasing inspirational Hispanic and Latino Americans. His most recent book of poems is Senegal Taxi (2013). A new book of poems from Juan Felipe Herrera titled Notes on the Assemblage is forthcoming from City Lights Publishers in September 2015.
    [Show full text]
  • Librarian of Congress Appoints UNH Professor Emeritus Charles Simic Poet Laureate
    University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Media Relations UNH Publications and Documents 8-2-2007 Librarian Of Congress Appoints UNH Professor Emeritus Charles Simic Poet Laureate Erika Mantz UNH Media Relations Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/news Recommended Citation Mantz, Erika, "Librarian Of Congress Appoints UNH Professor Emeritus Charles Simic Poet Laureate" (2007). UNH Today. 850. https://scholars.unh.edu/news/850 This News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the UNH Publications and Documents at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Media Relations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Librarian Of Congress Appoints UNH Professor Emeritus Charles Simic Poet Laureate 9/11/17, 1250 PM Librarian Of Congress Appoints UNH Professor Emeritus Charles Simic Poet Laureate Contact: Erika Mantz 603-862-1567 UNH Media Relations August 2, 2007 Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has announced the appointment of Charles Simic to be the Library’s 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Simic will take up his duties in the fall, opening the Library’s annual literary series on Oct. 17 with a reading of his work. He also will be a featured speaker at the Library of Congress National Book Festival in the Poetry pavilion on Saturday, Sept. 29, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Simic succeeds Donald Hall as Poet Laureate and joins a long line of distinguished poets who have served in the position, including most recently Ted Kooser, Louise Glück, Billy Collins, Stanley Kunitz, Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass and Rita Dove.
    [Show full text]
  • NYU Alumni Magazine Issue 10
    Charles Simic grapples with an unexpected national title by Michael Scharf Photograph by Peter Gregoire The ConsidersPoet WHEN CHARLES SIMIC WAS NAMED thing is very far away, and we just came was melting. He has never been directly the 15th U.S. Poet Laureate this past sum- home from the market. We’re unloading a confrontational in the manner of Amiri mer,he was,at nearly 70,an eminent Amer- week’s worth of groceries.The phone rings Baraka, whose poem “Somebody Blew Up ican poet: the winner of a MacArthur out of the blue—and they tell you.” America” (2002) condemns a long list of Foundation “genius” grant and of the A sudden call where a mysterious “American terrorists,” or Allen Ginsberg, Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his 1989 “they” make a possibly life-changing pro- who asked outright “America when will collection The World Doesn’t End (Harvest). nouncement in the midst of a mundane you be angelic?” (in America, 1956) and ref- Still, he was surprised when the phone call task is characteristic of the “dark illumina- erenced everyone from Walt Whitman to came one morning to his New Hampshire tions and acrid comedy,” as New York Sun Richard Nixon. Yet Simic has, he says, home. “Early August, nothing is happen- critic Adam Kirsch has written, that won “pretty much endorsed that sense of the ing,”Simic (WSC ’67) recounts in a cadence Simic national recognition. The call gave poet who speaks truth to power.” not unlike his verse.“In the boonies, every- Simic pause not only because his ice cream In “The Lights Are On Everywhere,” 48 / SPRING 2008 / NYU etrs POET LAUREATE CHARLES SIMIC, NOTED FOR HIS CUTTING WIT, VISITED FLORENCE PRIME MEATS IN THE VILLAGE DURING A RECENT TRIP TO HIS OLD NEIGHBORHOOD.
    [Show full text]
  • California State University, Northridge Myth in The
    CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE MYTH IN THE POETRY OF CHARLES SIMIC'S DISMANTLING THE SILENCE, RETURN TO A PLACE LIT BY A GLASS OF MILK, AND WHITE A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in English by Jordan Douglas Jones May 1986 The Thesis of Jordan Douglas Jones is approved: Arthur Lane, PhD Benjamin Saltman, PhD Arlene Stiebel, PhD, Chairperson Committee on Honors California State University, Northridge ii ABSTRACT MYTH IN THE POETRY OF CHARLES SIMIC'S DISMANTLING THE SILENCE, RETURN TO A PLACE LIT BY A GLASS OF MILK, AND WHITE by Jordan Douglas Jones Bachelor of Arts with Honors in English Charles Simic in the poetry of his books Dismantling the Silence, Return to a Place Lit By a Glass of Milk, and White uses myth to reach beyond the autobiographical to the archetypal and thus negate the importance of the author. In these poems, the poetic vocation mirrors the vocation of the· shaman as it has been elucidated by Mircea Eliade. Both poet and shaman allow universal forces to work through them. Simic also discusses the myths of the origins and the return to the origins of objects and works of art; as well as the dangers one must encounter when allowing uni­ versal creative principles to work through one during the creation of art. An~ther aspect of myth which can be seen here is the Romantic concept of Einfuhlung, or loss of ego/ iii object distinction. The author describes his union with particular natural objects.
    [Show full text]
  • The Pragmatics of Apprompted Poems
    LINES BY SOMEONE ELSE: THE PRAGMATICS OF APPROMPTED POEMS Kimberly Dawn Gibson Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2015 APPROVED: John ‘Haj’ Ross, Major Professor Bruce Bond, Committee Member Deborah Armintor, Committee Member Patricia Cukor-Avila, Director of the Department of Linguistics Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Gibson, Kimberly Dawn. Lines by someone else: The pragmatics of apprompted poems. Master of Arts (Linguistics), August 2015, 83 pp., 14 illustrations, references, 43 titles. Over the last sixty years, overtly intertextual poems with titles such as “Poem Beginning with a Line by John Ashbery” and “Poem Ending with a Line by George W. Bush” have been appearing at an increasing rate in magazines and collections. These poems wed themselves to other texts and authors in distinct ways, inviting readers to engage with poems which are, themselves, in conversation with lines from elsewhere. These poems, which I refer to as “apprompted” poems, explicitly challenge readers to investigate the intertextual conversation, and in doing so, they adopt inherent risks. My thesis will chart the various effects these poems can have for readers and the consequences they may hold for the texts from which they borrow. Literary critics such as Harold Bloom and J. H. Miller have described the act of borrowing as competitive and parasitic—“agon” is Bloom’s term for what he sees as the oedipal anxiety of poets and poets’ texts to their antecedents, but an investigation of this emerging genre in terms of linguistic pragmatics shows that apprompted poems are performing a wider range of acts in relation to their predecessors.
    [Show full text]
  • LIBRARY of CONGRESS MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2015 Poetry Nation
    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2015 poetry nation INSIDE Rosa Parks and the Struggle for Justice A Powerful Poem of Racial Violence PLUS Walt Whitman’s Words American Women Poets How to Read a Poem WWW.LOC.GOV In This Issue MARCH/APRIL 2015 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS MAGAZINE FEATURES Library of Congress Magazine Vol. 4 No. 2: March/April 2015 Mission of the Library of Congress The Power of a Poem 8 Billie Holiday’s powerful ballad about racial violence, “Strange Fruit,” The mission of the Library is to support the was written by a poet whose works are preserved at the Library. Congress in fulfilling its constitutional duties and to further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people. National Poets 10 For nearly 80 years the Library has called on prominent poets to help Library of Congress Magazine is issued promote poetry. bimonthly by the Office of Communications of the Library of Congress and distributed free of charge to publicly supported libraries and Beyond the Bus 16 The Rosa Parks Collection at the Library sheds new light on the research institutions, donors, academic libraries, learned societies and allied organizations in remarkable life of the renowned civil rights activist. 6 the United States. Research institutions and Walt Whitman educational organizations in other countries may arrange to receive Library of Congress Magazine on an exchange basis by applying in writing to the Library’s Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington DC 20540-4100. LCM is also available on the web at www.loc.gov/lcm.
    [Show full text]
  • Simic's Surrealist Metaphysics: a Review of Charles Simic, "The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems"
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Iowa Research Online Masthead Logo The Iowa Review Volume 34 Article 52 Issue 2 Fall 2004 Simic's Surrealist Metaphysics: A Review of Charles Simic, "The oiceV at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems" Jerry Harp Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Harp, Jerry. "Simic's Surrealist Metaphysics: A Review of Charles Simic, "The oV ice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems"." The Iowa Review 34.2 (2004): 170-175. Web. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.5876 This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The oI wa Review by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. JERRY HARP Simic's Surrealist Metaphysics: A Review of Charles Simic, The Voice at 3:00 a.m.: Selected Late and New Poems For many readers the term 'surrealism' readily connects to Lautr?amont's description of Mervyn in "Canto Six" of Les Chants de Maldoror?that he is as fair "as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella" (trans. Alexis Lykiard 1970). The description has become something of a definition, by way of example, of surrealist procedure. But as Maurice Nadeau points out in his The History of Surrealism, this movement developed between the World Wars as much more than a literary or artistic school.
    [Show full text]
  • W. H. Auden William Blake Charles Baudelaire Margaret Atwood
    Margaret Atwood W. H. Auden William Blake comprehensive poetry exam questions - masterlist MFA Charles Baudelaire Elizabeth Bishop Gwendolyn Brooks Robert Bly Robert Browning Lucille Clifton Robert Creely E. E. Cummings Bei Dao Emily Dickinson John Donne Rita Dove Paul Dunbar T.S. Eliot Robert Frost Alan Ginsberg H. D. Robert Hass Gerard Manley Hopkins subjects & themes, periods & traditions • “imagination,” metaphor, symbol, myth • religious poetry and belief • political and social content / themes • “largeness” (of subjects, themes, styles) • place • the commonplace • eroticism & death • women poets • african-american poets • gay & lesbian poets Langston Hughes Richard Hugo John Keats Denise Levertov Phillip Levine formal elements & conventions • evolution of formal elements & conventions • formal innovation / formalism vs. free verse • dramatic poetry • other formal / nonformal conventions Federico Lorca Robert Lowell Mira Loy Galway Kinnell W.S. Merwin influence, affiliation, “movements,” comparison & contrast • influence, affiliation, “movements,” comparison & contrast • confessional poetry • language • translation • humor • questioning the list itself Marianne Moore Ogden Nash Pablo Neruda Frank O’Hara Sharon Olds relation of list to student’s own writing • relation of the list to student’s own writing • teaching • rivalries / judging • performance • critical reception • partying Wilfred Owen Sylvia Plath Stanley Plumly Ezra Pound Adrienne Rich Rainer Maria Rilke Theodore Roethke Chrstina Rossetti Anne Sexton Leopold Senghor Sipho Sepamia Charles Simic Gary Snyder Wallace Stevens Mark Strand James Tate Cesar Vallejo Walt Whitman Richard Wilbur William Carlos Williams William Wordsworth James Wright subjects & themes, periods & traditions “imagination,” metaphor, symbol, myth 1. Discuss the use of myth, symbolism, and their simulacra in the work of two of the following: Zbigniew Herbert, Theodore Roethke, Francis Ponge, Adrienne Rich 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Download the PDF Concert Program
    Smithsonian American Art Museum Presents 21st CENTURY CONSORT February 21, 2015 Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium Smithsonian American Art Museum Smithsonian American Art Museum presents 21st Century Consort Christopher Kendall, Artistic Director Boyd Sarratt, Manager Jeremy Black, violin Paul Cigan, clarinet Lisa Emenheiser, piano Dan Foster, viola Deanne Meek, soprano Mike Ranellli, percussion Sara Stern, flute Rachel Young, cello Mark Huffman, recording engineer Kevin McKee, stage manager Saturday, February 21, 2015 Pre-Concert Discussion 4:00 p.m. Concert 5:00 p.m. Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium Smithsonian American Art Museum ❖ ❖ ❖ The 21st Century Consort’s 2014 - 2015 activities are sponsored by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and funded in part by generous contributions from the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the Board and Friends of the 21st Century Consort. www.21stcenturyconsort.org 2 Smithsonian American Art Museum presents Pre-Concert Discussion Christopher Kendall with Eugene O’Brien Program New York Nights Algebra of Night Eugene O’Brien 1 Moon Mark Strand 2 Old Postcard of 42nd Street at Night Charles Simic 3 New York dark in August Edwin Denby 4 Interlude: Burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night 5 Avenue A Frank O’Hara 6 Lullaby W. H. Auden 7 The Mad Scene James Merrill 8 To the Harbormaster Frank O’Hara 9 Interlude: Of sorrow from the moonstruck darkness 10 A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island Frank O’Hara Mr. Black, Ms. Emenheiser, Mr.
    [Show full text]