Jackstraws: Poems

Rating:
Summary: modernism of careful experimentation
Review: Charles Simic's surreal writing is fun, humorous, intellectually interesting, but still menacing. Each poem is like a cage with a rabid guinea pig inside, & you can't stop yourself from reaching in & petting it.

Rating:
Summary: modernism of careful experimentation
Review: Charles Simic's surreal writing is fun, humorous, intellectually interesting, but still menacing. Each poem is like a cage with a rabid guinea pig inside, & you can't stop yourself from reaching in & petting it.

Rating:
Summary: Fine stuff.
Review: Charles Simic, Jackstraws (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1999)

I've written so many glowing words about Charles Simic in the past year that anything more would really be superfluous (cf. reviews of The World Doesn't End, Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk, Classic Ballroom Dances, Charon's Cosmology, etc. etc.). All I can really say about Jackstraws is "another worthy entry in the corpus of Mr. Simic, which is already stacked full of quality material." Every new book from Charles Simic is an unalloyed pleasure to read, full of little unexpected pleasures and twists of phrase that cannot help but delight the reader. If you're not familiar with the work of Mr. Simic, I cannot but urge you to become so at your earliest opportunity; the man should be a living legend. As it is, he's just another poet trying to eke out a living, and that's a crime. ****

Rating:
Summary: A GULP OF AIR FOR MODERN POETRY
Review: Having only read *looking for trouble* and *frightening toys* i clearly had the disadvantage of reading a selection of his best poems before this collection of new poems. I bought the book last week and was expecting the usual simplistic beauty (unlike Hemingway,unlike Kafka,contrary to popular reviews)and that is exactly what i got, and indeed loved all over again. Yes, repatition is evident, but, i might add, still effective, strangely imaginative, and still one of the only reasons to continue reading and buying poetry, even in its modern decline. Most of todays poetry is bland and boring; most new poets are lifeless idiots trapped in bizzare romantasims with the world....*Jackstraws* is one of the few breaths that keeps this dying medium breathing.

Rating:
Summary: Very DEEP
Review: My favorite poem is Vacant Rooms and I'm using it for my poetry memorization project this spring in my Intro to Poetry class. I am impressed by the depth, which Simic uses so easily and bluntly. Upon first readings of these poems it may seem that is simply what the title states, but when you think about it slowly and read each line and visualize the concepts and connect each image with the next, it opens the flood gates for the imagination to wonder and get lost in a thousand interpretations that bring enjoyment and fun to the poem. Even if the poem is sad, it is an excellent feeling to comprehend the power behind the words.
It truly is a beautiful collection, I only hope that one day I can write as good as him and create that depth behind the words to make them stand out among the rest.