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Quote by Charles Simic

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The Uncertain Certainty: Interviews, Essays, and Notes on Poetry

This book delves into the world of poetry through a variety of perspectives, offering insights into the creative process, the interpretation of poetic works, and the enduring relevance of poetry in contemporary culture. more

Author

Charles Simic
Charles Simic

Charles Simic, born on May 9, 1938, is a renowned American poet. His poetry is known for its unique style and profound emotional expression, having won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. more

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“As I get older, I recognize that my thinking about poetry may or may not have anything actively to do with my actual work as a poet. This strikes me as no thing cynically awry but rather seems again instance of that hapless or possibly happy fact, we do not as humans seem necessarily aware of what we are physically or psychically doing at all!”

“There's a sameness about American poetry that I don't think represents the whole people. It represents a poetry of the moment, a poetry of evasion, and I have problems with this. I believe poetry has always been political, long before poets had to deal with the page and white space . . . it's natural.”

“Mature art, I think, emerges when there's a certain balance of tensions, when there's neither neurotic prostration nor cold rationality, but an aura of energy and a drive to grasp personal "truths" still emerging into perception. To grasp and to shape them.”

“Contemporary poetry ... tries to transform the sign back into meaning: its ideal, ultimately, would be to reach not the meaning of words, but the meaning of things themselves. This is why it clouds the language, increases as much as it can the abstractness of the concept and the arbitrariness of the sign and stretches to the limit the link between signifier and signified.”