Charles Simic: Selected Early Poems

Rating:
Summary: An essential volume of poems
Review: Anyone who is interested in the breadth, playfulness and imagistic intensity of contemporary American poetry needs to buy this book. Simic's early poems--surreal and yet rooted many times in the commonalities of life--are sparse yet full of surprises. These poems, when I was an undergrad, changed the way I THOUGHT about poetry, what it could accomplish. Nearly devoid of literary pretentions, Simic's poetry is nonetheless artful, using slang, riddles and the like to construct his worlds-within-poems. Simic later wrote a book called Dimestore Alchemy on the work of Joseph Cornell and I couldn't think of a better description than 'dimestore alchemy' for his own poetry. Few books are essentials, but this is one of them, a certified desert-island book for poets and lovers of poetry.

Rating:
Summary: Great poems, collection a bit lacking
Review: This book is all right if you're just discovering Simic, but if you're adding it to a collection it's not an essential buy. Despite the dust jacket's promise it doesn't deliver in the way of new or revised material, and the choice of poems mirrors too much the older (and cheaper) compilation, Selected Poems. Most of Simic's books are available and very affordable in paperback, and once you get to know him, you'll want them all. The "greatest hits" package here is optional.