#charlessimic

broadside artwork by Min Goto

This January, we lost the Serbian-American poet Charles Simic, born in 1938 in Belgrade. Over five decades and dozens of books, this winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Frost Medal was a compelling ambassador of the uncanny. He lingered before dusty pawn-shop windows, conversed with hoot owls, and crystallized the oddities of living in the late-20th- and early-21st-century as an experience of essential otherness. But he also suggested that we could find wonder in it, if we happened around the corner at just the right moment.

Summer Dusk 

You’ve been the love of my life,  Light lingering in the sky  At the close of a long day  Over the roofs of some city  Like New York or Rome,  As streets empty in the heat,  And shadows lengthen  And darken every room,  Occupied or still vacant,  Where some turn on the lamp  And others step to a window  To savor this fleeting moment  When everything stops  As if stunned by its own beauty.

. .

More on this book and author: 

Learn more about No Land in Sight by Charles Simic.

Browse other books by Charles Simic.

After Charles Simic’s passing, the poet Carolyn Forché published an essay on Simic, their friendship, and their shared connection with Central Europe. 

Visit our Tumblr to peruse poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series.

Como si no hubiera una razón para vivir…

como si no hubiera… nada.

En la penumbra, cabizbaja

nuestra madre se sentó a cocer.

¿Le tembló la mano? Al primer tenue

atisbo de la noche venidera, permanece todo

tan en calma, excepto por el recuerdo de esa voz:

al que la vida salvaje se llevó muy lejos…

Largos intervalos de silencio de por medio.

Reloj que habla a un reloj.

Perros echados sobre sus patas con las orejas ladeadas.

A los dos nos da miedo respirar.

Al final, ella fue a asomarse. Sobre la banqueta

un desconocido cubierto con un periódico.

Fuera de eso, nadie. La calle vacía.

El cielo lleno de nubes vagabundas.

Versión al español: Brianda Pineda Melgarejo Incluido en El libro de los dioses y demonios (1990)

The wail Charles Simic

As if there were nothing to live for…

As if there were … nothing.

In the fading light, our mother

Sat sewing with her head bowed.

Did her hand tremble? By the first faint

Hint of night coming, how all lay

Still, except for the memory of that voice:

Him whom the wild life hurried away…

Long stretches of silence in between.

Clock talking to a clock.

Dogs lying on their paws with ears cocked.

You and me afraid to breathe.

Finally, she went to peek. Someone covered

With a newspaper on the sidewalk.

Otherwise, no one about. The Street empty.

The sky full of gypsy clouds.

Una vieja cuchara, masticada y lamida hasta el brillo,

Te mira fijamente con sus ojos malignos

Cuando te inclinas sobre el plato de sopa que hay en la mesa,

Para comprobar una vez más que no queda nada.

Versión al español: Brianda Pineda Melgarejo

Spoon Charles Simic

An old spoon, chewed and licked clean,

Fixing you with its evil-eyed stare,

As you lean over the soup bowl on the table,

Charles Simic, The Knife