The Unemployed Fortune-Teller: Essays and Memoirs (Poets on Poetry) [Paperback]

Charles Simic (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1995 | Series: Poets on Poetry

Provides glimpses into the origins of Charles Simic's poetry

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Simic's 18 collected pieces, published between 1990 and 1993, might well be called a parade of memory. In these journals, notebooks, introductions, memoirs, and occasional pieces, Simic recalls the sights, sounds and smells of his native Yugoslavia. Born in Belgrade in 1938, the poet and his family moved to the United States in 1954. From then on, he tells us, poetry has dominated and determined his life. Though he has been living in New Hampshire some 20 years, Simic still relishes the role of exile as he rails at the literary critics and schoolmasters who do not share his view of the power of lyric poetry. Simic is nostalgic and acutely observant of his Serbian roots, as well as his early days in this country. He mixes the erotic with the poetic, the sensual pleasures of food and poetry and a love of language with a love of eating. The best pieces in this collection, however, are those full of wit and pithy pronouncements that come to the defense of poetry.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This collection gathers the writings of poet Simic (A Wedding in Hell, LJ 11/1/94) on a wide variety of topics, ranging from food's relationship to happiness to tragic events in Yugoslavia. Of the 18 articles included, most have appeared previously in Antaeus and other literary reviews. Several introductions and occasional pieces, along with a selection of notebook entries, flesh out the volume. Two biographical sketches, "Luneville Diary," which deals with Simic's U.S. Army experiences in France, and "Lady Be Good," an account of simic's affair, as a young man, with an older woman, are especially moving. The latter, an excerpt from a memoir in progress, promises a rich reading experience to come. For literary collections.
William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0472065696
• ISBN-13: 978-0472065691
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,342,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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