charles simic reading - the new school 9/27/06
Charles Simic read at the New School last night & here are my somewhat indecipherable notes...keep in mind that I'm still fighting a sinus infection & had to sit on the floor (hey New School - how about getting some BETTER SPACE for the readings?)...
Simic gave one of the more entertaining readings I've seen in a while. He's both personable and funny. He started off by telling us all how he lived in the neighborhood in the sixties (on 13th Street) and used to come to the New School for readings & events. He mentioned one particular event with Eric Fromme who was, apparently, very hard to understand with "a terrible German accent". Then he launched into a reflection on being 68 yrs old and how one focuses on the past, on memory & then read his poem, "Club Midnight". Each of his poems was prefaced with a short (and sometimes longer) account or story about his past or where he was when he wrote the poem. In 1958 he came back to the States. He left home at 18 - partly because his parents were always chasing each other around the kitchen with knives...He lived in unheated apartments, was always sick & wouldn't go to the doctor, the way many of us were really when we first came to NYC...He then read, "Immortal". Simic lives in New Hampshire now and spoke about the rural poverty there that many of us are unaware of and then read, "Pastoral Harpsichord" and a poem I wrote down as "Midsummer Cookout" though I was in the middle of supressing a coughing attack & can't be sure of that particular title. Next he spoke about the nature of time and specifically clocks and watches & how time changed when we no longer had to wind clocks, wind watches. Time used to be noisy, he also referenced noir films with the ticking of clocks used as a suspense device - it was all very funny & I'm paraphrasing badly. He talked about the period of transition when we moved from ticking clocks/controlling time into the digital age and how "all that's gone" and then read his poem, "Clocks of the Dead." Then we come to the subject of the love poem. He gave us an overview of the struggle poets have had throughout the history of poetry to find new ways to describe the beloved (stealing nick flynn's term), and then read a hilarious love poem, "My Beloved." Next up was, "The common insects of North America" in which he makes poetry out of the names of bugs in his book by that title. He introduced his poem, "Doubles" with a brief commentary on the frustration of being told by various women that he looks like so& so & how he's often been told he looks like Franz Schubert, "what am I supposed to do with that?" and then we had "That little something," a poem about opera whose title I didn't catch and "sailed to China" - a poem about family & beards or bearded family if I read my notes correctly. He introduced the next two poems, "Dreams" and "Used Bookstore" with a brief commentary on dreams and how he seldom dreams of his childhood now though when he does, his dreams are like old black & white movies strangely cut. Next, he read "In the Planetarium" which was prefaced by a derisively funny description of small town planetariums. He wrapped up the reading and the Q&A with David Lehman began. My notes here become somewhat indecipherable but here you go: as a warchild & juvenile delinquent - confimed pessimist...discussion of war's effect on kids - left alone to play in the streets - live ammo everywhere - Belgrade - 2 rivers Danube & ? - fishermen fished w/dynamite...he worked removing gunpowder from bullets and swapped the gunpowder for American C-rations (scrambled eggs, bacon, spam)...Poet as delinquent, transgressor, outsider...mentions Sappho & how she'd rather look up someone's skirt than laud heroic conquest...mention again of his favorite film, "Asphalt Jungle" and the influence American movies and American music had on him as a child. He didn't start writing poetry until he was in highschool & his true ambition at 14/15 yrs old was to paint. In the midst of the Q&A, he read "Crazy About her Shrimp" by request - as he put it, a summing up of his philosophy of love. Favorite Jazz song - "Mean to Me" - Billie Holiday and then launched into a description of musical tastes in Budapest in the 20's, 30's, 40's - everyone in the city listened to American music, Argentine tango, Cuban & Mexican music. In answer to the question as to why "The Voice at 3 AM" doesn't include poems from his Pullitzer prizewinner - "it's a complete book" and he couldn't separate the poems from the whole. Discussion of the book as a full length prose-poem. He tends to write poems in stages - mentions that it is possible to wait a decade to finish the final stanza of a poem but that also, a poem can be ruined from too much work. He then read a brief poem, "Murky Memories" which he said he'd written all at once (a bit of a joke - hard to get his humor across in this forum)...In response to J. Demme's question about "The Devils," he spoke a bit about that poem & then the reading wrapped so books could get signed & people could get to class on time. I got a copy of 3AM signed & limped the long way home (will my legs ever recover from that damn charity run?)...
Simic gave one of the more entertaining readings I've seen in a while. He's both personable and funny. He started off by telling us all how he lived in the neighborhood in the sixties (on 13th Street) and used to come to the New School for readings & events. He mentioned one particular event with Eric Fromme who was, apparently, very hard to understand with "a terrible German accent". Then he launched into a reflection on being 68 yrs old and how one focuses on the past, on memory & then read his poem, "Club Midnight". Each of his poems was prefaced with a short (and sometimes longer) account or story about his past or where he was when he wrote the poem. In 1958 he came back to the States. He left home at 18 - partly because his parents were always chasing each other around the kitchen with knives...He lived in unheated apartments, was always sick & wouldn't go to the doctor, the way many of us were really when we first came to NYC...He then read, "Immortal". Simic lives in New Hampshire now and spoke about the rural poverty there that many of us are unaware of and then read, "Pastoral Harpsichord" and a poem I wrote down as "Midsummer Cookout" though I was in the middle of supressing a coughing attack & can't be sure of that particular title. Next he spoke about the nature of time and specifically clocks and watches & how time changed when we no longer had to wind clocks, wind watches. Time used to be noisy, he also referenced noir films with the ticking of clocks used as a suspense device - it was all very funny & I'm paraphrasing badly. He talked about the period of transition when we moved from ticking clocks/controlling time into the digital age and how "all that's gone" and then read his poem, "Clocks of the Dead." Then we come to the subject of the love poem. He gave us an overview of the struggle poets have had throughout the history of poetry to find new ways to describe the beloved (stealing nick flynn's term), and then read a hilarious love poem, "My Beloved." Next up was, "The common insects of North America" in which he makes poetry out of the names of bugs in his book by that title. He introduced his poem, "Doubles" with a brief commentary on the frustration of being told by various women that he looks like so& so & how he's often been told he looks like Franz Schubert, "what am I supposed to do with that?" and then we had "That little something," a poem about opera whose title I didn't catch and "sailed to China" - a poem about family & beards or bearded family if I read my notes correctly. He introduced the next two poems, "Dreams" and "Used Bookstore" with a brief commentary on dreams and how he seldom dreams of his childhood now though when he does, his dreams are like old black & white movies strangely cut. Next, he read "In the Planetarium" which was prefaced by a derisively funny description of small town planetariums. He wrapped up the reading and the Q&A with David Lehman began. My notes here become somewhat indecipherable but here you go: as a warchild & juvenile delinquent - confimed pessimist...discussion of war's effect on kids - left alone to play in the streets - live ammo everywhere - Belgrade - 2 rivers Danube & ? - fishermen fished w/dynamite...he worked removing gunpowder from bullets and swapped the gunpowder for American C-rations (scrambled eggs, bacon, spam)...Poet as delinquent, transgressor, outsider...mentions Sappho & how she'd rather look up someone's skirt than laud heroic conquest...mention again of his favorite film, "Asphalt Jungle" and the influence American movies and American music had on him as a child. He didn't start writing poetry until he was in highschool & his true ambition at 14/15 yrs old was to paint. In the midst of the Q&A, he read "Crazy About her Shrimp" by request - as he put it, a summing up of his philosophy of love. Favorite Jazz song - "Mean to Me" - Billie Holiday and then launched into a description of musical tastes in Budapest in the 20's, 30's, 40's - everyone in the city listened to American music, Argentine tango, Cuban & Mexican music. In answer to the question as to why "The Voice at 3 AM" doesn't include poems from his Pullitzer prizewinner - "it's a complete book" and he couldn't separate the poems from the whole. Discussion of the book as a full length prose-poem. He tends to write poems in stages - mentions that it is possible to wait a decade to finish the final stanza of a poem but that also, a poem can be ruined from too much work. He then read a brief poem, "Murky Memories" which he said he'd written all at once (a bit of a joke - hard to get his humor across in this forum)...In response to J. Demme's question about "The Devils," he spoke a bit about that poem & then the reading wrapped so books could get signed & people could get to class on time. I got a copy of 3AM signed & limped the long way home (will my legs ever recover from that damn charity run?)...
posted by hellkittennyc at 10:56 AM
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