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Wedding in Hell by Charles. Simic (1994, Trade Paperback)

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Wedding in Hell : Poems, Paperback by Simic, Charles, ISBN 0156001292, ISBN-13 9780156001298, Brand New, Free shipping in the US Poems focus on the contradictions of modern life, the impact of television, memories of childhood, and the prevalence of violence

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Product Identifiers

PublisherHarperCollins

ISBN-100156001292

ISBN-139780156001298

eBay Product ID (ePID)41271

Product Key Features

Book TitleWedding in Hell

Number of Pages96 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicSubjects & Themes / Nature, General, Subjects & Themes / Family, Subjects & Themes / General

Publication Year1994

GenrePoetry

AuthorCharles. Simic

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.3 in

Item Weight3.7 Oz

Item Length8.2 in

Item Width5.2 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN94-011941

ReviewsThe world according to Simic (Hotel Insomnia) has never been an especially nice place, and his new collection of poems registers no signs of improvement. Urban decay, war and the depravities of false priests and corrupt rulers provide the occasions for much of this work, where private desperation is seen to be our lot and any respite momentary, at best. The knack of Simic's poetry is to have found a voice to reflect on such matters without sounding solemn or maudlin-a plainspoken, slightly wary voice that wins our confidence by its apparent modesty and our gratitude by its power to surprise, accommodating cynicism and injured outcries. Still, nothing that Simic says, however humanly concerned, is without the salt of irony, sometimes heavily applied. Even his approach to poetic form has become ironic: surrealist images, used to startling effect in his early books, are now more commonly deployed as near cliches, persuading us there's nothing new under the sun; individual poems have a self-consciously throwaway quality, as if to advise us that they are no better than anything else. And yet Simic's poetry comforts and (ironically) charms us, too, even as it insists that it is only "like the wind/ Between the cold winter stars./ A creaky door/ Way out in the darkness./ Some kind of small bird/ Trapped by a cat/ And calling on heaven to witness.", What can possibly be said when the burden of experience threatens to shut one down? This challenge, as it occurs in these poems, results in airless, end-stopped lines that act as exercises to memory, much like the boxes of Joseph Cornell (to whom Simic has written the homage Dime-Store Alchemy, Ecco Pr., 1992). Whatever is necessary to the image is left in; whatever serves its aggrandizement is left out. The remains accumulate and strike out in odd directions. "Just thinking about it, I forgot to wind the clock./We woke up in the dark./How quiet the city is, I said./Like the clocks of the dead, my wife replied./Grandmother on the wall,/I heard the snows of your childhood/Begin to fall." The pressure evident here is often alleviated by humor and consummate irony. In this 12th collection, the poet again manages to live up to his well-deserved reputation. Recommended for all poetry collections. Steven R. Ellis, Brooklyn P.L.

TitleLeadingA

Dewey Decimal811.54

SynopsisSimic puts chirping birds, sex, and happiness into a world of broken windows, shivering trees, soldiers, lone dogs, the homeless of the city, and a God still making up his mind. "Provocative...a tantalizing, beautiful fusion of visions" (Bloomsbury Review).

LC Classification NumberPS3569.I4725W43 1994

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item 1 A Wedding in Hell - Paperback By Simic, Charles - GOOD