A poem is an invitation to a voyage. As in life, we travel to see fresh sights. — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
“Time—the lizard in the sunlight. It doesn't move, but its eyes are wide open.” — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
Only poetry can measure the distance between ourselves and the Other. — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism participates. — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat and the poet is only the bemused spectator. — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
For Emily Dickinson every philosophical idea was a potential lover. Metaphysics is the realm of eternal seduction of the spirit by ideas. — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
“History is a cookbook. The tyrants are chefs. The philosophers write menus. The priests are waiters. The military men are bouncers. The… — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
We name one thing and then another. That’s how time enters poetry. Space, on the other hand, comes into being through the… — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
“Lyric poets are always corrupting the young, making them choke in self-pity and indulge in reverie. Dirty sex and direspect for authority… — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
“Charles Simic, when asked what he thought of Slam Poetry events: "They are fun, but they have as much to do with… — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
I'm not a stickler for truth. To me, lying in poetry is much more fun. I'm against lying in life, in principle,… — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
The religion of the short poem, in every age and in every literature, has a single commandment: Less is always more. The… — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
I do believe that a poem needs to remind the reader of his or her own humanity, of what they are, of… — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
“The time of minor poets is coming. Good-by Whitman, Dickinson, Frost. Welcome you whose fame will never reach beyond your closest family,… — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
Here in the United States, we speak with reverence of authentic experience. We write poems about our daddies taking us fishing and… — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them. — Charles Simic Copy Share Image
“Lyric poets are always corrupting the young, making them choke in self-pity and indulge in reverie. Dirty sex and direspect for authority is what… — Charles Simic Copy Share
“There’s a book called “A Dictionary of Angels.” No one has opened it in fifty years, I know, because when I did, The covers… — Charles Simic Copy Share
Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them. — Charles Simic Copy Share
“The truth is dark under your eyelids. What are you going to do about it? The birds are silent; there's no one to ask.… — Charles Simic Copy Share
In their effort to divorce language and experience, deconstructionist critics remind me of middle-class parents who do not allow their children to play in… — Charles Simic Copy Share
“The ambition of much of today's literary theory seems to be to find ways to read literature without imagination.” — Charles Simic Copy Share
“The Something" Here come my night thoughts On crutches, Returning from studying the heavens. What they thought about Stayed the same, Stayed immense and… — Charles Simic Copy Share
There are knives that glitter like altars In a dark church Where they bring the cripple and the imbecile To be healed. There's a… — Charles Simic Copy Share
“هندوانه بودای سبز بر پیشخوان میوه فروش لبخندش را گاز میزنیم و دندانهایش را تف میکنیم :: Watermelons Green Buddhas On the fruit stand. We eat the smile And spit out the teeth.” — Charles Simic Copy Share
Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat and the poet is only the bemused spectator. — Charles Simic Copy Share
“The idea is to spin the wheel of metaphors and images until sparks of associations begin to fly for the reader.” — Charles Simic Copy Share
Found objects, chance creations, ready-mades (mass-produced items promoted into art objects, such as Duchamp's "Fountain"-urinal as sculpture) abolish the separation between art and life.… — Charles Simic Copy Share
The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny spec surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the… — Charles Simic Copy Share
