By Kathryn Green
Pulitzer prize winner Charles Simic brought life to the vivid imagery in his poetry on Friday, Nov. 30, at reading in the Varsity Theater.
Simic, a professor of creative writing at the University of New Hampshire, read a variety of his new and old poems, colored with anecdotes and personal stories.
“BYU had a friendly audience,” Simic said. “You don”t find that everywhere you go.”
Simic began by reading “The Parial Explanation,” a poem in which a lonely traveler steps into a grimy caf? to eat and to “eavesdrop on the conversation of cooks.”
Simic said the landscape he had in mind was a dismal and desolate place in Maine.
“It takes place on a day much like today,” he said, referring to Utah”s wintry landscape.
Simic also read “Spoon,” “Fork” and “Knife,” three poems he said came about as a result of looking at his odd kitchenware.
“After reading ”Fork,” someone once asked me if I was a vegetarian,” Simic said. “Just because I write something in a poem doesn”t mean I believe it.”
Simic said his writing process is not like other poets. He said his method is slow, complicated and changing.
“I undergo endless revisions,” Simic said. “My poems slowly become what they are.”
Lance Larsen, BYU professor of contemporary American poetry, gave Simic”s introduction.
Larsen compared the poet”s biographical information and honors to a compound sentence, paying tribute to one of Simic”s own metaphors.
To illustrate Simic”s dense style, Larsen said reading Simic is like “being psychoanalyzed by Emily Dickinson” and “drinking history through a glow-in-the-dark silly straw.”
Cynthia Hamilton, 21, a senior from Nicolasville, Ky., majoring in history, said Simic”s reading made her contemporary poetry class more realistic.
Hamilton said Simic”s poetry added color and dimension to historical events like World War II.
“Listening to his experience was like relishing a memory I never had,” Hamilton said.
Laura Stott, 22, a senior from Draper, Salt Lake County, majoring in English, said she had been looking forward to the reading all day.
Stott is the editor of BYU”s creative writing journal, “Inscape”.
“Simic is as big to poetry as Michael Jordan is to sports fans,” Stott said. “He takes things that are ordinary and turns them into amazing images.”
The BYU Bookstore set up a table of Simic”s works for purchase after the reading. Students who purchased a book had the opportunity to get Simic”s signature in their collection.
Simic”s reading was the first in the Ethel L. Handley reading series. The next big name to visit BYU will be Phillip Levine in March, according to the English department.
