Hotel Insomnia, poems by Charles Simic
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992
This is the first collection I've read by Charles Simic, though I have heard so much about what a wonderful poet he is. Yet, nothing prepared me for how much this collection would affect me.
Reading the poems in Hotel Insomnia gave me goose bumps. Really. Simic's voice is so spare, yet so powerful his words are each a small truth hurled at you with both grace and force.
Simic writes in terse lines that each comprises complete thoughts in and of themselves. His line and stanza breaks serve his poems perfectly by setting a fluid rhythm.
But it's Simic's words themselves that really affected me. It's difficult to pick just a couple of my favorite passages, but here it goes
From the poem "Evening Walk":
The high leaves like my mother's lips
Forever trembling, unable to decide,
For there's a bit of wind,
And it's like hearing voices,
Or a mouth full of muffled laughter,
A huge dark mouth we can all fit in
Suddenly covered by a hand.
And these lines from "Romantic Sonnet":
Happiness, you are the bright red lining
Of the dark winter coat
Grief wears inside out.
This is about myself when I'm remembering,
And your long insomniac's nails,
O Time, I keep chewing and chewing.
Simic was born in Yugoslavia, and there is a melancholic Eastern European feel to many of the starker poems in this collection. Do not miss out on this great contemporary poet. You will be haunted by his images long after you've put this book down.
