Review by Booklist Review
Fifty-two new poems by Simic, a poet who left post-World War II Yugoslavia for America at the crucial age of 16. Author of 10 previous books and recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, Simic writes hushed and spare poems redolent with the saltiness of old, transatlantic sorrows and familiar yet faint memories. Here, his poetry is still, nearly mute, and wonderfully phosphorescent. He taps into the hallucinogenic nature of insomnia, injecting each image with an edginess and touch of irony, a sense of incarceration, resignation, and expectation. Simic writes repeatedly of the night, of visions lit only by the flare of a match or the flicker of a candle. For him, "everything is a magic ritual, / A secret cinema"--shadowy vignettes on city streets, in windows, beneath rainy skies. As each poem unfolds with the stubborn logic of interrupted dreams, Simic stimulates that part of our mind that keeps us awake at night, ceiling gazing, musing, and slow-breathing. ~--Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
``Memory makes you hungry,'' writes Simic, whose poems are like folk tales told by a child with an impishly surrealistic streak. Memories of shadowy streets and rooms are haunted by an insomnia that suggests an enchanted dreamtime of watchfulness and revelation, where ``everything is a magic ritual,/ a secret cinema.'' One of the most original poets writing today, Simic has a gift for startling juxtapositions: ``Sleeplessness, you're like a pawnshop/Open late/ On a street of failing businesses.'' Homely images, in Simic's hands, take on an eerie combination of the marvelous and the absurd, ``Father studied theology through the mail/ and this was exam time./Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book/full of pictures. Night fell./ My hands grew cold touching the faces/ of dead kings and queens.'' There are few poets writing today whose sense of wonder is so palpable: ``happiness, you are the bright red lining/of the dark winter coat/ grief wears inside out.'' Recommended for all collections.--Christine Stenstrom, Shea and Gould Law Lib., New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
