Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Simic, Charles (Vol. 130) - Peter Stitt (review date Spring 1987)

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Peter Stitt (review date Spring 1987)

SOURCE: “The Whirlpool of Image and Narrative Flow,” in Georgia Review, Vol. XLI, No. 1, Spring, 1987, pp. 200-203.

[In the following review, Stitt traces the evolution of Simic's poetry from dark and terrifying to lighter and gentler in his volume Unending Blues.]

The voice of Charles Simic is surely one of the most distinct in the world of contemporary poetry. He is known for his terrifying Kafkaesque vision, his propensity for speaking in parables, and his use of pointed and surrealistic images. The title of his newest volume, Unending Blues, seems to promise the first two of these characteristics, and the knowing reader assumes the presence of the third. These elements are indeed dominant through most of the book, though subtle forces of change seem to be undermining two of them. Before I talk about the changes I see taking place, I would like to look at an example of the kind of poem...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Hayden Carruth (review date Summer 1971)
   2. James Atlas (review date February 1975)
   3. Richard Jackson (essay date Winter 1980)
   4. Peter Schmidt (essay date Fall 1982)
   5. Bruce Bennett (review date 12 March 1983)
   6. Charles Simic with Sherod Santos (interview date 1984)
   7. Kenneth Funsten (review date 16 March 1986)
   8. Peter Stitt (review date Spring 1987)
   9. Marci Janas (review date Spring 1991)
   10. Steven Cramer (review date January 1992)
   11. Ileana A. Orlich (essay date Spring 1992)
   12. Edward Hirsch (review date 21 December 1992)
   13. Lisa Zeidner (review date 21 March 1993)
   14. Tam Lin Neville (review date Spring 1993)
   15. Philip Miller (essay date Summer 1993)
   16. Scott Edward Anderson (review date November-December 1993)
   17. Judith Kitchen (review date Winter 1995)
   18. Christopher Merrill (review date 19 March 1995)
   19. Helen Vendler (essay date 1995)
   20. Charles Simic with Molly McQuade (interview date 1995)
   21. David Sofield (review date 13 January 1996)
   22. David Bafer (review date April 1996)
   23. Paul Breslin (review date July 1997)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright