Selected Poems, 1963-1983

Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, this collection represents what many experts feel is Charles Simic's finest work. This expanded edition contains 33 revisions of many of the original collection's poems. Simic's imagery and meaning rely heavily and beautifully on line breaks and their rhythm. His phrases create their own separate thoughts between line breaks, easing the music of the poem into a slower, contemplative pace despite the topic: "Because I am the bullet / that has gone through everyone already / I thought of you long before you thought of me" (from "What the White Had to Say"). Simic lends clarity to that which is otherwise complex.