Night picnic Poems

Review by Booklist Review

Simic illuminates the shadow side of life in poems as perfectly formed and directed as the beam of a flashlight. He sees lovers in cemeteries after dark and ponders the secret lives of rats, crows, and worms, yet his noir outlook abates just enough to make room for a new strain of sardonic humor and a keen sense of the entanglement of the erotic and the doomed. Unexpected juxtapositions hit the brain like a whiff of smelling salts as he decodes the mixed messages of a street on a hot night--a thread of opera set against "the city boiling in its bloody stew," a couple French-kissing while the homeless lie in "dark doorways" --and considers various unlikely Christ figures, including a "Jesus lookalike / who won a pie-eating contest in Texas." Nabokovian in his caustic charm and sexy intelligence, Simic perceives the mythic in the mundane and pinpoints the perpetual suffering that infuses human life with both agony and bliss. Donna Seaman

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Simic's accomplishments as an American poet have deep roots in his wartime-Serbia childhood: his sly, uncanny arrangements of household words in short poems some comic, others genuinely scary convey a sense of menace everywhere, and of gentle, sad sarcasm as the right response. This first book of poems since 1999's Jackstraws continues Simic's familiar, unsettling methods and extends them into the terrain of older age. In "Past-Lives Therapy," "a straw-headed boy in patched overalls" becomes a man "constructing a spaceship out of a coffin"; in "Three Doors," "Some fellow/ with that it-pays-to-be-cagey look" stands in for the cagey poet. "Icarus' dog," "aesthetic paradox," "a Jesus lookalike/ Who won a pie-eating contest in Texas," a Kafkaesque "small nameless bug" and an empty schoolhouse add to the well-stocked gallery of amiable grotesques, among which "we the bewildered" make our way. The third and most moving of the book's three parts departs from Simic's usual pattern, offering saddened epigrams followed by powerful meditations on death and old age, considered as a raindrop, as a kitchen or as a restaurant "The check is being added in the back/ As we speak." Simic's poems can grow predictable in their methods image succeeds image, each short-lined stanza as haunting or hard-boiled as the next. But Simic (who won a Pulitzer for The World Doesn't End) remains a powerful, and funny, chronicler of an individual world one where pastry, omelets and queen-size beds offer their ambiguous pleasures, and where, inseparably, "the butchery of the innocent/ Never stops." It is a world that should be familiar. (Sept.) Forecast: Simic's last few books received admiring press from all over, helped in part by his increasing prominence as an essayist (The Unemployed Fortune Teller and Orphan Factory) and book reviewer. This strong collection should at least equal recent volumes' success, and should be a contender for major awards. A collected or ra evised selected volume can't be far behind. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

This follow-up to the recent Jackstraws (LJ 3/1/99) finds Simic in a relatively benign and domestic frame of mind. While his predilection for dread and his predisposition toward surreal non sequiturs haven't entirely vanished, the poet more often turns his attention to the mundane: objects on a dresser, unmade beds, a gas station, strolling lovers ("I was warm, so I took my jacket off/ And put my arm around your waist/ and drew you to me"). Simic's tone is generally flat and matter-of-fact, and if evil intrudes, it barely ripples the easygoing delivery ("The devil's got his finger in every pie"). The poems are vignettes, ordinary or quirky scenes displayed at face value, vaguely inviting the reader to extend them beyond their uncertain borders via glancing references to churches, angels, and saints convenient ciphers meant to suggest a metaphysical dimension more easily implied than articulated. Like the "Tree of Subtleties" he describes, Simic intends to hint "at dark secrets still to be unveiled," but blanched of sharp linguistic edges or striking images, the hints just aren't compelling enough. Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Do you want to hear about the ants in my pants For a certain Ms. Hopeless? Or do you prefer me singing Amazing Grace? Past-Lives Therapy They explained to me the bloody bandages On the floor in the maternity ward in Rochester, N.Y. Cured the backache I acquired bowing to my old master, Made me stop putting thumbtacks round my bed. They showed me an officer on horseback, Waving a saber next to a burning farmhouse And a barefoot woman in a nightgown, Throwing stones after him and calling him Lucifer. I was a straw-headed boy in patched overalls. Come dark a chicken would roost in my hair. Some even laid eggs as I played my ukulele And my mother and father crossed themselves. Next, I saw myself inside an abandoned gas station Constructing a spaceship out of a coffin, Red traffic cone, cement mixer and ear warmers, When a church lady fainted seeing me in my underwear. Some days, however, they opened door after door, Always to a different room, and could not find me. There'd be only a small squeak now and then, As if a miner's canary got caught in a mousetrap. Street of Jewelers What each one of these hundreds Of windows did with the gold That was melting in them this morning, I cannot begin to imagine. I act like a prospective burglar Noting the ones that are open, Their curtains drawn to the side By someone stark naked, I may have just missed. Here, where no one walks now, And when he does, he goes softly, So as not to tip the scales In the act of weighing Specks of dust in the dying sunlight. Three Doors This one kept its dignity Despite being kicked And smudged with fingerprints. Someone wanted to get in Real bad. Now the whole neighborhood can see What went on late last night And the night before. Two clenched fists Raised high Pounding, pounding, And asking God To please bear witness. * * * This door's hinges, I suspect, Give off a nasty screech From seeing Too many feet caught in it. Just a minute ago, Some fellow With that it-pays-to-be-cagey look Snuck out. Screams of a child, Yelps of a kicked dog And wild laughter Followed after him. * * * I heard the neighbor's screen door Creak open at daybreak To let the cat in With what sounded like a stage whisper Into her still-dark kitchen. I could feel the black cat rub herself Against her bare legs And then take her first lick With her rough, red tongue Of the cold milk glowing in the saucer. The Avenue of Earthly Delights Hustlers of gold chains, Coming our way in the midnight crowd, Waving them up high Like angry rattlesnakes. A French-kissing couple Falling on the hood of a braking taxi, Still holding on to their drinks. Large and small African masks On a makeshift table With empty eye sockets, Mouths frozen in a scream A tangle of tanned arms, breasts Bathed in sweat slipping out Of a strapless dress, Short skirt like shreds of tinfoil Fluttering in an electric fan As she executes a dance step, Fingers popping, tongue sticking out As if this sultry night Was a delicious, creamy dessert, And we were all shortly due To hop into one big haystack, Dallying into the wee hours And the soft light of day- Which dares not come- With its funny side streets And the homeless, fallen off their crosses, Sprawled in dark doorways. Couple at Coney Island It was early one Sunday morning, So we put on our best rags And went for a stroll along the boardwalk Till we came to a kind of palace With turrets and pennants flying. It made me think of a wedding cake In the window of a fancy bakery shop. I was warm, so I took my jacket off And put my arm round your waist And drew you closer to me While you leaned your head on my shoulder, Anyone could see we'd made love The night before and were still giddy on our feet. We looked naked in our clothes Staring at the red and white pennants Whipped by the sea wind. The rides and shooting galleries With their ducks marching in line Still boarded up and padlocked. No one around yet to take our first dime. Angel Tongue Theresa, do you recall that dive Smoke-filled like a house on fire Where nightly we huddled In one of the rear booths Reading to each other from a book On the mystic way of life? You worked in a bridal shop With iron bars on its windows. The two brides on display Had tense little smiles for me Every time I stopped by While you peeked between them All prim and rosy-cheeked. We played an elaborate game Of hide-and-seek with words While pretending to find clues Of divine presence in streets Emptied at day's end, dark But for the sight of your lips Quivering from the cold As you told me of a light So fine, so rare, it lights The very light we see by. In the meantime, your eyes were Open so wide, I hurried To close them with kisses, While you ranted about mystic death With the tongue of an angel. Unmade Beds They like shady rooms, Peeling wallpaper, Cracks on the ceiling, Flies on the pillow. If you are tempted to lie down, Don't be surprised, You won't mind the dirty sheets, The rasp of rusty springs As you make yourself comfy. The room is a darkened movie theater Where a grainy, Black-and-white film is being shown. A blur of disrobed bodies In the moment of sweet indolence That follows lovemaking, When the meanest of hearts Comes to believe Happiness can last forever. Excerpted from Night Picnic by Charles Simic Copyright © 2001 by Charles Simic Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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