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Rating:  - One of my favorites
There are some really beautiful and intriguing poems in here; the kind of writing you will want to read out loud and discuss with friends. I would highly recommend it.
Rating: - Another Superb Work of Genius from a True Master!
This collection, like all of Simic's others, is truly a work of superb genius. But unlike Simic's previous work, it is a totality of superb genius. By this I mean that there is not one "filler" poem, not one line or moment that he seems to slip -- it is wholly perfection.
Okay, this is a strong opinion, but true to me. This is a work of searching that is so fresh and unique in its undertakings and thoughts that it seems as if he has stumbled upon a new way of searching via poetry. But he hasn't. The eternal search (and whatever form that may take)is not new to any poet, but he has managed to keep the human search for him/herself, the universe, and so forth so very fresh one cannot help but admire and revel in the genius of each poem, each word, tone, sound, line. This collection of Simic will sit comfortably with your other Simic books ... and if this is your first foray into Simic, you will be truly captivated!
This collection seems to be a Charles realizing the answers (or at least the beginning of answers) to questions he has had forever, and thankfully his genius in the art of poetry gives him a way to deliver nuggets of knowledge and answers to all of us. But only nuggets; most of the beauty in these poems (and in a any great poetry) is the holding back.
Read these poems aloud ... and silently ... you'll see what I mean!
Keep 'em coming, Mr. Simic.
Rating: - Simic's Homage to Things that Go Unnoticed
Charles Simic is a poet, yes, but he is more than that highest compliment in literary circles. Simic is a visionary because he is in tune with the atoms and microns that float through our atmosphere, either discarded or simply ignored, or worse, never noticed by us, the usual beings. He manages is so few terse words to nudge us into awareness.
'Extraordinary efforts are being made
To hide things from us, my friend.
Some stay up into the wee hours
To search their souls.
Others undress each other in darkened rooms.'
Pause on every page of this physically slim but potent collection of his latest poems and see if you can turn away unchanged. Brilliant poetry from a consistently brilliant poet. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, September 05
Rating: - Stunning.
Charles Simic, My Noiseless Entourage (Harcourt, 2005)
Simic continues to astound readers with thin, gorgeous books of poetry every few years. It's been a while, though (this is his first book of completely new work since 1999's Jackstraws), and one has to wonder-- why the six-year gap? Is The man losing a step? Not at all, cholly. My Noiseless Entourage, from its opening words, transports the reader to that same weird and wonderful place that all of Simic's books do. (And, with him having recently garnered a quick mention in a Lemony Snicket book, perhaps his star will be rising to where it rightfully belongs in the near future.)
I had originally started off thinking I was going to quote specific passages from the book in testament to how great it is, but I ended up with so many I just opened the book and random and came across:
"America, I shouted at the radio,
Even at 2AM you are a loony bin!
No, I take it back!
You are a stone angel in the cemetery
Listening to blind geese in the sky
Your eyes blinded by snow."
(--"Talk Radio")
As always, there's not a word out of place, no fat to be trimmed from these wonderful, dadaesque ramblings. It's, perhaps, not quite as powerful as Simic's finest moments (The World Doesn't End or Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk, for example), but you're talking about the difference between a 20 megaton bomb and a 19 megaton bomb; you're still going to come out of the experience having been blown away.
Rating:  - A "Midnight Feast"
Simic's brilliant poetry is provocative, visual, casting thoughts like scattered jewels, begging to be picked up, examined, remembered. The title, My Noiseless Entourage, suggests the nature of this collection, shadowy thoughts that intrude to jostle the memory, like the ghosts of friends and neighbors walking one step behind on a long, winding country road with evening pushing in. These are the subterranean sounds no one acknowledges, but everyone hears, man and beast, the low-timbered groan of voices, shape-shifters seen from the corner of the eye.
In "The Role of Insomnia in History", the personal coexists with the impersonal:
"The mind is a palace
Walled with mirrors.
The mind is a country church,
Overrun with mice."
Thoughts scurry around at will, ever busy, judging, weighing. At the same time, others carry responsibility, those who dwell in the security of power:
"When dawn breaks,
The saints kneel,
The tyrants feed their hounds
Chunks of bloody meat."
Addressing both the mundane and the metaphysical, everything is on the table for consideration: "In the graveyard where he collects the rent/ Or in the night sky/ Where we address our complaints to him." (The Absentee Landlord)
Self-examination is fertile ground when viewing the world, making sense of the ghosts that follow us through the years, the simple pleasures, the missed opportunities:
"All I've ever done
It seems- is go poking
in the ruins with a stick
Until I was covered
With soot and ashes..." (December 21)
The depth of Simic's creativity is inexhaustible, characters plucked from the bustling city, the rural farm, the past, words opening and reconfiguring themselves, settling on the page anew to prick the broken strings of memory: "The sun doesn't care for ambiguities,/ But I do. I open my door and let them in." (Shading Exercise)
Luan Gaines/2005.
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