Scribbled in the Dark

By Charles Simic

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning former poet laureate, a collection of elegiac, irreverent new poems—an American master at the height of his talent

 The latest volume of poetry from Charles Simic hums with the liveliness of the writer’s pen. Scribbled in the Dark brings the poet’s signature sardonic sense of humor, piercing social insight, and haunting lyricism to diverse and richly imagined landscapes. Peopled by policemen, presidents, kids in Halloween masks, a fortune-teller, a fly on the wall of the poet’s kitchen; set on crowded New York streets, on park benches, and under darkened skies; the pages within toy with the end of the world and its infinity. Simic continues to be an imitable voice in modern American poetry and one of its finest chroniclers of the human condition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9780062661197

Charles Simic

Charles Simic was a poet, essayist, and translator who was born in Yugoslavia in 1938 and immigrated to the United States in 1954. He published more than twenty books of poetry, in addition to a memoir and numerous books of translations for which he received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Wallace Stevens Award. In 2007, he served as poet laureate of the United States. He was a distinguished visiting writer at New York University and professor emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, where he taught since 1973. He died in January 2023 at the age of eighty-four.

Book preview

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DEDICATION

FOR HELEN

EPIGRAPH

It’s not as though I had a cow to milk,

or do I?

—James Tate                

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

DEDICATION

EPIGRAPH

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I

DARK NIGHT’S FLY CATCHER

SEEING THINGS

AT THE VACANCY SIGN

THAT ELUSIVE SOMETHING

FAIR-WEATHER FRIENDS

UNINVITED GUEST

ALL GONE INTO THE DARK

THE WEEK

TO BOREDOM

FISH OUT OF WATER

ILLEGIBLE SCRIBBLE

HISTORY

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

IN THE COURTROOM

MISSED CHANCE

II

JANUARY

IN WONDER

IN THE SNOW

ANCIENT COMBATANT

THE NIGHT AND THE COLD

ALL THINGS IN PRECIPITOUS DECLINE

THE CRICKET ON MY PILLOW

WINTER FLY

BARE TREES

ROADHOUSE

STRAY HEN

THE WHITE CAT

THE ONE WHO DISAPPEARED

THE MESSAGE

BIRDS KNOW

III

THE MOVIE

BELLADONNA

ON CLOUD NINE

SWEPT AWAY

MY GODDESS

THE LUCKY COUPLE

DEAD SURE

THE LOVER

THE SAINT

THE ART OF HAPPINESS

IN SOMEONE’S BACKYARD

CHERRY PIE

A DAY CAME

HAUNTED HOUSE

THE BLIZZARD

IV

THE INFINITE

LAST BET FOR THE NIGHT

DESCRIPTION

MYSTERY THEATER

SHADOW ON THE WALL

LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO HIDE

SCRIBBLED IN THE DARK

IN THE GREEK CHURCH

THE MASQUE

MANY A HOLY MAN

THE LIFEBOAT

PAST THE CEMETARY

STAR ATLAS

NIGHT OWLS

AT TENDER MERCY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY CHARLES SIMIC

CREDITS

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

These poems were first published in the following magazines, to whose editors grateful acknowledgment is made: The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, Boulevard, London Review of Books, Tin House, The Nation, Boston Review, Monkey Business, The Threepenny Review,