Lunatic: Poems

From Pulitzer Prize winner and former Poet Laureate Charles Simic comes a dazzling collection of poems as original, meditative, and humorous as the legendary poet himself.

This latest volume of poetry from Charles Simic, one of America's most celebrated poets, demonstrates his revered signature style--a mix of understated brilliance, wry melancholy, and sardonic wit. These seventy luminous poems range in subject from mortality to personal ads, from the simple wonders of nature to his childhood in war-torn Yugoslavia.

For over fifty years, Simic has delighted readers with his innovative form, quiet humor, and his rare ability to limn our interior life and concisely capture the depth of human emotion. These stunning, succinct poems--most no longer than a page, some no longer than a paragraph--validate and reinforce Simic's importance and relevance in modern poetry.

Inside, Simic's masterful eye for the uncanny and the profound reveals:

• Meditative Poetry: A single snowflake falls and rises, a mirror understands everything, and a lost button tells the story of a forgotten touch.
• Sardonic Wit: Meet the uncrowned king of the insomniacs, a rat writing a personal ad for a soul mate, and God playing a game of solitaire while Satan cheats.
• Everyday Surrealism: Discover a world where Death needs a button sewn on his coat and a horse stands quietly over your bed in the middle of the night.
• Poems about Mortality: From a ghost ship weighed down with coffins to the simple poignancy of a dead fly in a window, Simic confronts the end with a clear and steady gaze.