That Little Something: Poems [Hardcover]

Charles Simic (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2008

In his eighteenth collection, Charles Simic, the superb poet of the vaguely ominous sound and the disturbing, potentially significant image, moves closer to the dark heart of history and human behavior.

Simic understands the strange interplay between ordinary life and extremes, between reality and imagination, and he writes with absolute purity about those contradictory but simultaneous states of being or feeling: "Everything about you / My life, is both / Make-believe and real."

A profoundly important poet for our time, and a stunning book.

SECRET HISTORY

Of the light in my room:

Its mood swings,

Dark-morning glooms,

Summer ecstasies.

 

Spider on the wall,

Lamp burning late,

Shoes left by the bed,

I'm your humble scribe.

 

Dust balls, simple souls

Conferring in the corner.

The pearl earring she lost,

Still to be found.

 

Silence of falling snow,

Night vanishing without trace,

Only to return.

I'm your humble scribe.

(20080301)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his 18th collection, Poet Laureate Simic's neat stanzas continue to deliver odd moments and unexplained memories, by turns surreal, horrifying, funny, sad, and spoken with this Pulitzer Prize winner's trademark friendly bemusement. The startling solemnity of a Metaphysics Anonymous meeting for addicts of truth beyond appearances in one poem meets, in another, a list of topics for a late-night chat, including 'How to guess time of night by listening to one's own heartbeat. The second of the book's four sections takes on a decidedly political tone, as in Dance of the Macabre Mice, in which the president smiles to himself; he loves war. Similarly, Those Who Clean After imagines what's being done in our name while the speaker listens to the sounds of summer night. The final section groups short poems that Simic (My Noiseless Entourage) calls Eternities—each offers a preserved moment's thought or image: Sewing room, linty daylight. While fans will find no stylistic surprises here, there is still the agreeable pathos in Simic's work, as in To the Reader, which ends, Bang your head / On your side of the wall / And keep me company. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

Simic’s concise, silvery, and sardonic poems sketch grim vignettes in a world of absences. Here we are in an empty museum wing, on a ghost ship, and treading stairways to hell in a blacked-out city where clocks have stopped and “mad men” rule. The few survivors are traumatized yet remain enthralled by desire and touched by beauty. Simic, a pivotal voice of our bloody times, draws on dark fairy tales, Shakespeare, and pulp fiction as his poems rise from the page like the smoke of the last cigarettes of the damned. This is the blasted, blighted land of tyranny and genocide, morgues and ruins, bold-faced lies and sleepless nights. Simic writes disarmingly of those who clean up after the torturers are finished for the day and the stupid jubilation that breaks out as, once again, the machinery of war is cranked into action. And yet for all the corrosive pain, there is a macabre playfulness here and cleansing anger. We may be trapped in a nightmare of brutality, but we stubbornly “look for another refuge.” --Donna Seaman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 73 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (April 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151013594
• ISBN-13: 978-0151013593
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,511,582 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More fun from Simic., July 18, 2008

By 

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

This review is from: That Little Something: Poems (Hardcover)

Charles Simic, That Little Something (Harcourt, 2008)

Charles Simic is stepping down from the post of Poet Laureate a year early because, he says, being Poet Laureate keeps him away from doing what he loves best-- writing poetry. And honestly, as much as I like seeing Simic, unarguably one of America's best living poets, in such a position, anything that gets him to be more prolific is perfectly fine with me.

I have to say that Simic's distraction is noticeable in some of these poems, but really, when Simic brings his A game to the table, he's still matchless:

"The two of us just barely visible,
Ghostlike looking from high up
At the wet cobblestones,
The one pigeon who appeared hurt,
Who wanted to be somewhere else
And did his best to get there,
Limping badly and stopping to rest."
("One Wing of the Museum")

It's getting kind of boring saying "another winner from Charles Simic," but I'll put up with the boredom as long as Simic keeps turning out my favorite books of any given year. Wonderful, as usual. ****

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars little sad something, July 7, 2008

By 

Joshua Stewart "Joshua Michael Stewart" (Ware, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: That Little Something: Poems (Hardcover)

The first reviewer nails it on the head everything he says is right on.

I love Simic's work. He is the reason I started writing myself. I owe everything to his book "Walking the Black Cat" which is a five star book. But I'm sad to say that his last 4 or 5 books have little to offer.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars retread, April 27, 2008

By 

T. Holman (SLC, UT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: That Little Something: Poems (Hardcover)

This is a very slight, minor work by Charles Simic and one wonders why he even bothered to publish it. Perhaps he's cashing in on his new poet laureate status- cynical but who can blame him? All the old familiar Simic symbols and metaphors are paraded out but without the depth of some of his earlier books. Also lacking is energy and inventiveness. His style is instantly recognizible and I'm afraid he has become something of a parody of himself. The title is really accurate- This book is Something and it is Little.