My Noiseless Entourage: Poems [Hardcover]

Charles Simic (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2005

This new collection of poems from Charles Simic demonstrates once again his wit, moral acuity, and brilliant use of imagery. His settings are a farmhouse porch, a used-clothing store, empty station platforms; his subjects love, futility, and the sense of an individual life lived among a crowd of literal and imaginary presences.
Both sharp and sympathetic, the poems of this collection confirm Simic's place as one of the most important and appealing poets of our time.

To Dreams

I'm still living at all the old addresses,
Wearing dark glasses even indoors,
On the hush-hush sharing my bed
With phantoms, visiting in the kitchen

After midnight to check the faucet.
I'm late for school, and when I get there
No one seems to recognize me.
I sit disowned, sequestered and withdrawn.

These small shops open only at night
Where I make my unobtrusive purchases,
These back-door movie houses in seedy neighborhoods
Still showing grainy films of my life,

The hero always full of extravagant hope
Losing it all in the end?-whatever it was-
Then walking out into the cold, disbelieving light
Waiting close-lipped at the exit.

(20050301)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Over the past three decades, Simic's compact, often spooky poems of displacement, violence and anxiety have won him national acclaim (and a Pulitzer); for some readers, Simic's frightened children, intrepid shopkeepers and bleak fairy-tale atmospheres mark his work as late-blooming surrealism, while others link his sensibility to the violence he escaped as a child in 1940s Serbia. Simic offers many sinister delights, if few big shockers, in this 14th volume of new work: of its four sections, the first two stick largely to the grittily familiar Simic settings: "All-night cafeterias,/ Dark barrooms/ And poolhalls," not to mention "an empty platform/ With no town in sight." Short, bleary lines alternate streamlined realism with dreamlike gloom: "A tongue by itself in a birdcage" begs for water, while a walker explores "A few homes lately foreclosed." The last (and best) parts of the book expand Simic's repertoire of images, moving from film noir scenes into bizarre parables: "that world out there," the poet shows, "Is a riddle even you can't solve." Helpless, baffled, resigned and nevertheless charming, Simic (Hotel Insomnia; etc.) makes up for his limited range by offering verse with almost no false notes; standout poems attack war or mull the absence of God ("the least he could do is put up a sign"), and the whole collection establishes Simic once again as a reliable master of his particular, melancholy, wry mode. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

Simic's poems embody his unwavering examination of reality as filtered through the lens of personal experience and imagination. Although the emotional setting for some of his new poems is a dark city street filled with used bookstores, pawn shops, and pool halls, and flanked by a dark alley, Simic can never be nailed down to such a tangible representation. His surrealist bent is too strong. The "noiseless entourage"--that is, the ghostly figures that move in and out of these poems, whether literally present in the world or traipsing through the poet's mindscape--convey themes of loss, thievery, and bearing witness. Simic's gift is his ability to unite the real with the abstract in poems that lend themselves to numerous interpretations, much like dreams. Whether using the metaphor of a dog for the self, or speaking to sunlight, Simic, original and engaging, keeps us on our toes, guessing, questioning, and looking at the world in a new way. Janet St. John
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 80 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (April 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151012148
• ISBN-13: 978-0151012145
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #425,772 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning., July 26, 2005

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Noiseless Entourage: Poems (Hardcover)

Charles Simic, My Noiseless Entourage (Harcourt, 2005)

Simic continues to astound readers with thin, gorgeous books of poetry every few years. It's been a while, though (this is his first book of completely new work since 1999's Jackstraws), and one has to wonder-- why the six-year gap? Is The man losing a step? Not at all, cholly. My Noiseless Entourage, from its opening words, transports the reader to that same weird and wonderful place that all of Simic's books do. (And, with him having recently garnered a quick mention in a Lemony Snicket book, perhaps his star will be rising to where it rightfully belongs in the near future.)

I had originally started off thinking I was going to quote specific passages from the book in testament to how great it is, but I ended up with so many I just opened the book and random and came across:

"America, I shouted at the radio,
Even at 2AM you are a loony bin!

No, I take it back!
You are a stone angel in the cemetery

Listening to blind geese in the sky
Your eyes blinded by snow."
(--"Talk Radio")

As always, there's not a word out of place, no fat to be trimmed from these wonderful, dadaesque ramblings. It's, perhaps, not quite as powerful as Simic's finest moments (The World Doesn't End or Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk, for example), but you're talking about the difference between a 20 megaton bomb and a 19 megaton bomb; you're still going to come out of the experience having been blown away.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Superb Work of Genius from a True Master!, December 23, 2005

By 

Carrie McGath (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Noiseless Entourage: Poems (Hardcover)

This collection, like all of Simic's others, is truly a work of superb genius. But unlike Simic's previous work, it is a totality of superb genius. By this I mean that there is not one "filler" poem, not one line or moment that he seems to slip -- it is wholly perfection.

Okay, this is a strong opinion, but true to me. This is a work of searching that is so fresh and unique in its undertakings and thoughts that it seems as if he has stumbled upon a new way of searching via poetry. But he hasn't. The eternal search (and whatever form that may take)is not new to any poet, but he has managed to keep the human search for him/herself, the universe, and so forth so very fresh one cannot help but admire and revel in the genius of each poem, each word, tone, sound, line. This collection of Simic will sit comfortably with your other Simic books ... and if this is your first foray into Simic, you will be truly captivated!

This collection seems to be a Charles realizing the answers (or at least the beginning of answers) to questions he has had forever, and thankfully his genius in the art of poetry gives him a way to deliver nuggets of knowledge and answers to all of us. But only nuggets; most of the beauty in these poems (and in a any great poetry) is the holding back.

Read these poems aloud ... and silently ... you'll see what I mean!

Keep 'em coming, Mr. Simic.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simic's Homage to Things that Go Unnoticed, September 3, 2005

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: My Noiseless Entourage: Poems (Hardcover)

Charles Simic is a poet, yes, but he is more than that highest compliment in literary circles. Simic is a visionary because he is in tune with the atoms and microns that float through our atmosphere, either discarded or simply ignored, or worse, never noticed by us, the usual beings. He manages is so few terse words to nudge us into awareness.

'Extraordinary efforts are being made
To hide things from us, my friend.
Some stay up into the wee hours
To search their souls.
Others undress each other in darkened rooms.'

Pause on every page of this physically slim but potent collection of his latest poems and see if you can turn away unchanged. Brilliant poetry from a consistently brilliant poet. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, September 05