The Voice At 3:00 A.m.

Selected Late and New Poems

Charles Simic

• Publisher: Ecco
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9780547546322
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Charles Simic has been widely celebrated for his brilliant poetic imagery; his social, political, and moral alertness; his uncanny ability to make the ordinary extraordinary; and not least, the sardonic humor all his own. Gathering much of his material from the seemingly mundane minutiae of contemporary American culture, Simic matches meditations on spiritual concerns and the weight of history with a nimble wit, shifting effortlessly to moments of clear vision and intense poetic revelation. Chosen as one of the New York Library's 25 Books to Remember for 2003, The Voice at 3: 00 A. M. was also nominated for a National Book Award. The recipient of many prizes, Simic most recently received Canada's Griffin Prize. The poems in this collection--spanning two decades of his work--present a rich and varied survey of a remarkable lyrical journey.In the Street
Beauty, dark goddess,
We met and parted
As though we parted not.
Like two stopped watches
In a dusty store window,
One golden morning of time.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Front
• From Unending Blues, 1986
• December
• Early Evening Algebra
• Toward Nightfall
• William and Cynthia
• At the Night Court
• First Frost
• For the Sake of Amelia
• October Arriving
• Against Whatever it is That's Encroaching
• Promises of Leniency and Forgiveness
• From The Book of Gods and Devils, 1990
• The Little Pins of Memory
• St. Thomas Aquinas
• A Letter
• Factory
• Shelley
• The Betrothal
• The Devils
• Evening Talk
• The White Room
• Frightening Toys
• The Big War
• Death, the Philosopher
• At the Corner
• A Word
• The Pieces of the Clock Lie Scattered
• The Immortal
• The Gods
• Two Dogs
• Cabbage
• Paradise
• In the Library
• The Scarecrow
• Windy Evening
• From Hotel Insomnia, 1992
• Evening Chess
• The City
• Penal Architecture
• The Prodigal
• Hotel Insomnia
• The Tiger
• Clouds Gathering
• Folk Songs
• A Book Full of Pictures
• Evening Walk
• Hotel Starry Sky
• To Think Clearly
• The Chair
• Lost Glove
• Romantic Sonnet
• Beauty
• My Quarrel with the Infinite
• The Old World
• Country Fair
• From A Wedding in Hell, 1994
• Sinister Company
• Dream Avenue
• Paradise Motel
• The Clocks of the Dead
• Explaining a Few Things
• Romantic Landscape
• Leaves
• Transport
• Crazy About her Shrimp
• Reading History
• Empires
• The Tower
• Shaving
• Mystics
• Via Del Tritone
• The Secret
• From Walking the Black Cat, 1996
• Mirrors at 4 a.m.
• Relaxing in a Madhouse
• Late Call
• Emily's Theme
• Cameo Appearance
• What the Gypsies Told My Grandmother While She Was Still a Young Girl
• Charm School
• October Light
• Ghosts
• At the Cookout
• Club Midnight
• Blood Orange
• Pastoral Harpsichord
• The Friends of Heraclitus
• From Jackstraws, 1999
• The Voice at 3:00 a.m.
• Speck-Sized Screaming Head
• The Soul has Many Brides
• El Libro de la Sexualidad
• Mummy's Curse
• Prison Guards Silhouetted Against the Sky
• School for Visionaries
• Midsummer Feast
• Obscurely Occupied
• On the Meadow
• Talking to the Ceiling
• De Occulta Philosophia
• Mystic Life
• Ambiguity's Wedding
• Head of a Doll
• From Night Picnic, 2001
• Past-Lives Therapy
• Unmade Beds
• Street of Jewelers
• The One to Worry About
• Cherry Blossom Time
• Sunday Papers
• And then I Think
• The Altar
• My Father Attributed Immortality to Waiters
• Views From a Train
• Night Picnic
• Car Graveyard
• Wooden Church
• The Lives of the Alchemists
• New Poems
• Nearest Nameless
• Empty Barbershop
• In the Street
• Grayheaded Schoolchildren
• Serving Time
• Postcard from S.
• Little Night Music
• Driving These Roads
• The Museum Opens at Midnight
• Party Fiend
• The Prompter
• Autumn Sky
• Something Large is in the Woods
• To the One Tunneling
• Separate Truths
• The Secret Doctrine
• The Hearse
• Café Don Quixote
• Late September