Pulitzer-Winning Serbian-Born Poet Charles Simic Dies At 84: Charles Simic, a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet whose unmatched skill at lyricism and economy, tragic insight, and disruptive comedy wowed critics and fans, passed away at age 84.
Simic’s passing was announced on Monday by executive editor Dan Halpern of Alfred A Knopf. Simic served as the US poet laureate from 2007 to 2008. He didn’t give any more information right away.
Simic, a prolific author of numerous volumes who didn’t begin writing in English until well into his 20s, was considered by many to be one of the greatest and most innovative poets of his time. Growing up in Yugoslavia during the war helped create his grim but humorous outlook, which led him to declare that “The world is old. It was always old.” His poems were typically brief and to the point, with unexpected and occasionally abrupt changes in mood and imagery, as if to reflect the harshness and randomness he had experienced early on.
His major works include Walking the Black Cat, nominated for a National Book Award in 1996, Unending Blues; The World Doesn’t End, and more recent collections like The Lunatic and Scribbled in the Dark. He also won the Pulitzer Prize for The World Doesn’t End in 1990.
Judges hailed him as “a magician, a conjuror,” and a master of “a disarming, deadpan precision, which should never be confused for simplicity” when he won the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2005. Thanks to his multilingualism, he translated poetry from French, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian.
Simic wed Helene Dubin, a fashion designer, in 1964; they had two kids together. He became a citizen of the United States in 1971, and two years later, he joined the University of New Hampshire’s faculty, where he served for many years.
What the Grass Says, his debut book was published in 1967. He then published Dismantling the Silence and Somewhere Among Us a Stone is Taking Notes, and he soon averaged one book each year. In a few lines, he could express “a complex of perceptions and sentiments,” according to a 1978 New York Times assessment.
In 2013, Simic stated to Granta, “Of all the things ever said about poetry, the dictum that less is more has had the biggest and most enduring influence on me.” “Throughout my life, I’ve written a lot of little poems, yet the word “written” isn’t entirely accurate to describe how they came to be.
These poems are a compilation of thoughts and ideas flying around in my head for a long time because it is impossible to sit down and compose an eight-line poem that will be lengthy for its size. Please forward this to your friends if you find it interesting. Newswatchlist.com is the best place to find the latest and updated information about your favorite celebs.