Walking the Black Cat [Paperback]

Charles Simic (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 1996

Hamlet’s ghost wandering the halls of a Vegas motel, a street corner ventriloquist using passersby as dummies, and Jesus panhandling in a weed-infested Eden are just a few of the startling conceits Simic unleashes in this collection. “Few contemporary poets have been as influential-or inimitable-as Charles Simic” (New York Times Book Review).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Simic's short, taut lines carve dark-edged images reminiscent of old folk tales. In this new collection, his 13th (The World Doesn't End earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990), he focuses on such folklore elements as chance, luck, faith and illusion at work in a quotidian world of cookouts, family life and memory. Juxtaposing disparate images, Simic jars his readers into a state of disorientation, priming them for a world where one must approach mirrors "sideways/ In rooms webbed in shadow," where "Destiny marks you early in the day/ With a knowing finger," and where a tree is "spooked/ By its own evening whispers/...Making a noise full of deep/ Misgivings,/ Like bloody razor blades/ Being shuffled." There the lucky and the nimble survive: "Death's an early riser./ You've got to be real quick/ To slip under his arm." Handling his many images like a confident juggler or a magician, in "My Magician" Simic himself is the magician's dummy: "Through a row of wooden teeth/ We spoke of God the Father./ Then we vanished in a pack of cards." Simic's poetry depicts a tricky, dangerous and unstable existence where the black cat?symbol of bad luck?is a constant, even loved, companion. "It's horror movie time,/ Says the Emperor" in "The Emperor," but with these poems Simic tames that horror some and walks it on a leash.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Arguably the most original of our great poets, Simic has been recognized with a MacArthur Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize. The apparent simplicity of his poetic voice evokes a world at once darkly foreign yet seductively familiar. This collection, like Simic's many previous volumes, dazzles with images, insights, and narratives and disturbs with its recognition of the dark and inexplicable. Simic's familiar themes appear?scraps of an austere childhood in war-ravaged Europe, fascination with silence and anonymity, terrors and alienations of the commonplace, and conversations with philosophers and poets who feed his imagination. Interestingly, love poems rise to the top and give this book its rapture. Despite this thrust, a few dark corners remain. Still, it would be a shame not to persist; with Simic the effort is always rewarded. Highly recommended for anyone interested in contemporary poetry.?James A. Zoller, Houghton Coll., N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (October 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 015600481x
• ISBN-13: 978-0156004817
• ASIN: 015600481X
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #794,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best poets alive, November 15, 2004

By 

J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Walking the Black Cat (Paperback)

Charles Simic's "Walking The Black Cat" is hard evidence that the sarcastic, irreverent and consciousness bending spirit of surrealism is alive and well. Simic's tone is flippant and unmistakably poetic; he can take the most ordinary situation and make a slick, subtle metaphysical comment about it ("On the Sagging Porch" is one of the best examples of this, as he takes a local president of the SPCA in a few beautiful stanzas makes Judas out of him). In fact he seems to have a better grasp of what the oft used and abused word "surreal" means then a lot of the original surrealists themselves; these poems are not word games or pretty images, but both employed into substantive, moving poetry that sticks to the mind. I think this collection as much as "The World Doesn't End" deserved the Pulitzer Prize. Anyone who loves challenging, consciousness altering poetry will become a devotee of Simic.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous., December 1, 2003

By 

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

This review is from: Walking the Black Cat (Paperback)

Charles Simic, Walking the Black Cat (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1996)

Pulitzer Prizewinning author Charles Simic is to dada what Clayton Eshleman is to surrealism; he's pretty much the sole light keeping it alive in the world of poetry in the present day. Simic, a hardcore imagist, is wonderfully precise in his use of concrete detail, which he then pulls completely out of the realm of reality by juxtaposing things which have no business being next to one another. Walking the Black Cat, a finalist for the National Book Award, is often considered one of Simic's finest works, and justly. There is much here to be enjoyed, mulled over, surprised at, and delighted with, and very little that dips below the level of brilliant. If you've never discovered the Joy of Simic, this is a fantastic place to start. ****

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Contemporary, Thoughtful, Disturbing, and Refreshing, May 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Walking the Black Cat (Paperback)

Blue collar poetry. Subtle and haunting, Charles Simic sets out, one rainy, Sunday afternoon, to take the innards out of life, and play with them as a child would play with an Erector Set. Very satisfying and original