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Poet Charles Simic to Read at Smith College
Editor's note: For a 300-dpi image of Charles Simic, contact Marti Hobbes.
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.—The Poetry Center at Smith College will present Pulitzer Prize-winner and MacArthur “genius grant” recipient Charles Simic at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26, in Weinstein Auditorium, Wright Hall. The event is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible.
Born in war-torn Eastern Europe in 1938 and immigrating from Belgrade as a boy, Charles Simic has authored more than 60 books. His work weaves an intricate tapestry of shadowy subjects and brilliant awakening details. As noted in the Harvard Review, “There are few poets writing in America today who share his lavish appetite for the bizarre, his inexhaustible repertoire of indelible characters and gestures...”
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for “The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems” in 1990, Simic is also a three-time nominee for a National Book Award for “Charon’s Cosmology” (1977), “Walking the Black Cat” (1996) and “The Voice at 3:00 A.M.” (2003). Designating “Jackstraws” a Notable Book of the Year in 1999, The New York Times noted that “few contemporary poets have been as influential—or as inimitable.” His most recent collection, “My Noiseless Entourage,” was published in 2005.
Among Simic’s many other awards and honors is his election in 1995 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the highest formal recognition of artistic merit in the United States. As a distinguished translator of Serbian, Croatian and Macedonian, he has also twice won the PEN International Translation Award. Simic lives and teaches in New Hampshire.
Prior to his reading, poetry fans are invited to attend a free and unstructured slate of readings behind John M. Greene Hall. A variety of poets participating in the 2006 Poetry Bus Tour will read from their work beginning at 6 p.m. Organized by Wave Books, a Seattle-based poetry press, the tour will cover 50 cities in 50 days.
Simic’s reading will be followed by booksale and signing. For further information, contact Cindy Furtek in the Poetry Center office at (413) 585-4891 or Ellen Doré Watson, director, at (413) 585-3368.
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Office of College
Relations
Smith College
Garrison Hall
Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 |
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Marti
Hobbes
News Assistant
T (413) 585-2190
F (413) 585-2174
mhobbes@email.smith.edu
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