Sixty Poems

Here are sixty of Charles Simic's best known poems, collected to celebrate his appointment as the fifteenth Poet Laureate of the United States.

Discover the unique vision that earned him the nation’s highest honors in poetry:

• Dream-like Imagery: Explore a world where everyday objects hold strange secrets, from mirrors at 4 a.m. to a single chair standing like a throne in an abandoned factory.
• Witty and Melancholic Voice: A unique perspective that finds profound humor in sorrow, and sorrow in the absurd, in poems about mystics, devils, and talking canaries.
• Accessible Language: Crafted with plainspoken clarity, these poems invite all readers into their world without sacrificing an ounce of depth or mystery.
• The Immigrant Experience: A thread of displacement and memory runs through the collection, from a war-torn childhood to finding the surreal on the streets of America.