Scribbled in the Dark

Description

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning former poet laureate, a collection of elegiac, irreverent new poems-an American master at the height of his talent The latest volume of poetry from Charles Simic hums with the liveliness of the writer's pen. Scribbled in the Dark brings the poet's signature sardonic sense of humor, piercing social insight, and haunting lyricism to diverse and richly imagined landscapes. Peopled by policemen, presidents, kids in Halloween masks, a fortune-teller, a fly on the wall of the poet's kitchen; set on crowded New York streets, on park benches, and under darkened skies; the pages within toy with the end of the world and its infinity. Simic continues to be an imitable voice in modern American poetry and one of its finest chroniclers of the human condition.

Charles Simic, poet, essayist, and translator, was born in Yugoslavia in 1938 and immigrated to the United States in 1954. Since 1967, he has published twenty books of his own poetry, including his most recent collection, New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012, in addition to a memoir and numerous books of translations for which he has received many literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award, the Griffin Prize, the MacArthur Fellowship, and the Wallace Stevens Award. Simic is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and in 2007 was chosen as poet laureate of the United States. He is emeritus professor of the University of New Hampshire, where he has taught since 1973, and is distinguished visiting writer at New York University.

"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 "Image by image, Simic composes miniature masterpieces, offering what appears as a seemingly effortless study in language's cinematic possibilities." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)