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Night Picnic: Poems
The author of Walking the Black Cat and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The World Doesn't End presents a new collection of poetry that evoke a rich variety of settings and images, from New York City's crowded sidewalks on a hot summer night to an abandoned old church in a small New England town. 15,000 first printing.
- GenresPoetry
86 pages, Hardcover
First published September 28, 2001
About the author
Charles Simic
269 books478 followersU.S. Poet Laureate, 2007-2008
Dušan Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, on May 9, 1938. Simic’s childhood was complicated by the events of World War II. He moved to Paris with his mother when he was 15; a year later, they joined his father in New York and then moved to Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, where he graduated from the same high school as Ernest Hemingway. Simic attended the University of Chicago, working nights in an office at the Chicago Sun Times, but was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961 and served until 1963.
Simic is the author of more than 30 poetry collections, including The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems (1989), which received the Pulitzer Prize; Jackstraws (1999); Selected Poems: 1963-2003 (2004), which received the International Griffin Poetry Prize; and Scribbled in the Dark (2017). He is also an essayist, translator, editor, and professor emeritus of creative writing and literature at the University of New Hampshire, where he taught for over 30 years.
Simic has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His other honors and awards include the Frost Medal, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the PEN Translation Prize. He served as the 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, and was elected as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2001. Simic has also been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Dušan Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, on May 9, 1938. Simic’s childhood was complicated by the events of World War II. He moved to Paris with his mother when he was 15; a year later, they joined his father in New York and then moved to Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, where he graduated from the same high school as Ernest Hemingway. Simic attended the University of Chicago, working nights in an office at the Chicago Sun Times, but was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961 and served until 1963.
Simic is the author of more than 30 poetry collections, including The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems (1989), which received the Pulitzer Prize; Jackstraws (1999); Selected Poems: 1963-2003 (2004), which received the International Griffin Poetry Prize; and Scribbled in the Dark (2017). He is also an essayist, translator, editor, and professor emeritus of creative writing and literature at the University of New Hampshire, where he taught for over 30 years.
Simic has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His other honors and awards include the Frost Medal, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the PEN Translation Prize. He served as the 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, and was elected as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2001. Simic has also been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
February 10, 2021
I'm just a storefront dentist
Extracting a blackened tooth at midnight.
I chewed on many bitter thruths, Doc,
My patient says after he spits blood out
Still slumped over, gray-haired
And smelling of carrion just like me.
Of course, I may be the only one here,
Anf this is a mirror trick I'm performing.
Even the few small crumpled bills
He leaves on his way out, I don't believe in.
I may pluck them with a pair of wet pincers
And count them, and then I may not.
- - -
Gambling casino of the sky
Lit up with summer stars.
That's the soul's jukebox,
We are told by the night wind.
But when we ask what size coin it takes
We are greeted with stunned silence.
- - -
My narrow bed's
Asthmatic wheeze,
How well you must know it
In your insomnia,
As I toss and turn,
Mulling over
What beauty, what beast
You bait my trap with.
Read
October 8, 2023Night Picnic
There was the sky, starless and vast—
Home of every one of our dark thoughts—
Its door open to more darkness.
And you, like a late door-to-door salesman,
With only your own beating heart
In the palm of your outstretched hand.
All things are imbued with God’s being—
(She said in hushed tones
As if his ghost might overhear us)
The dark woods around us,
Our faces which we cannot see,
Even this bread we are eating.
You were mulling over the particulars
Of your cosmic insignificance
Between slow sips of red wine.
In the ensuing quiet, you could hear
Her small, sharp teeth chewing the crust—
And then finally, she moistened her lips.
There was the sky, starless and vast—
Home of every one of our dark thoughts—
Its door open to more darkness.
And you, like a late door-to-door salesman,
With only your own beating heart
In the palm of your outstretched hand.
All things are imbued with God’s being—
(She said in hushed tones
As if his ghost might overhear us)
The dark woods around us,
Our faces which we cannot see,
Even this bread we are eating.
You were mulling over the particulars
Of your cosmic insignificance
Between slow sips of red wine.
In the ensuing quiet, you could hear
Her small, sharp teeth chewing the crust—
And then finally, she moistened her lips.
March 19, 2024
He was happy to witness the world
April 19, 2023
I never really liked Poetry books but this one is alright
These poems have a knack for describing emotions you did not know the English language could. My favorites were the poems about the couples experiencing moments of intimacy in public places—its crazy how good humans are of closing out the rest of the world when we want to
These poems have a knack for describing emotions you did not know the English language could. My favorites were the poems about the couples experiencing moments of intimacy in public places—its crazy how good humans are of closing out the rest of the world when we want to
August 27, 2026
simic is the Charon of the Styx with his penumbra of scathing lightmares
Thus said, the world is really a black cat walking its way to work, that psychic sonorous sound… strikingly more perplexing than imagined… the work of a waiter is immortality as long as you realize your days are numbered
Thus said, the world is really a black cat walking its way to work, that psychic sonorous sound… strikingly more perplexing than imagined… the work of a waiter is immortality as long as you realize your days are numbered
January 15, 2022
2.5 - 3 stars. I've enjoyed a lot of Simic's work, but this collection had more misses than hits for me. Such is life!
January 15, 2023
RIP king 🙏
admittedly not his greatest collection but still solid.
admittedly not his greatest collection but still solid.
November 16, 2023
I quite enjoyed reading this book.
July 13, 2024
now, let me have a book-lined tomb
in some old cemetery
where widows leave cigarettes and sweets
on the graves of their husbands,
and lovers come to solve the mysteries
of each other’s buttons 😞
in some old cemetery
where widows leave cigarettes and sweets
on the graves of their husbands,
and lovers come to solve the mysteries
of each other’s buttons 😞
March 27, 2026
"A blur of disrobed bodies
In the moment of sweet indolence
That follows lovemaking,
When the meanest of hearts
Comes to believe
Happiness can last forever."
In the moment of sweet indolence
That follows lovemaking,
When the meanest of hearts
Comes to believe
Happiness can last forever."
October 2, 2026
I liked the night theme. But the poems didn’t really do anything for me.
April 7, 2026
'Of course, I may be the only one here,
And this is a mirror trick I'm performing'.
It left me with a claustrophobic feeling.. as if I were part of a night-rotting world, and some phrases struck me. I closed the book having glimpsed a dark, 'surreal' reality, almost grotesque in its intensity. The poems that particularly stood out to me: Unmade Beds, Sunday Papers, The Improbable, The Altar, Bible Lesson, For The Very Soul Of Me.. Among others.
And this is a mirror trick I'm performing'.
It left me with a claustrophobic feeling.. as if I were part of a night-rotting world, and some phrases struck me. I closed the book having glimpsed a dark, 'surreal' reality, almost grotesque in its intensity. The poems that particularly stood out to me: Unmade Beds, Sunday Papers, The Improbable, The Altar, Bible Lesson, For The Very Soul Of Me.. Among others.
May 8, 2008
Loons! Loons!
May 10, 2008
Again, nostalgia, yet the title poem is the best in the book and one of my all time favorite poems.
December 28, 2011
For the Very Soul of Me is one of the great poems in the English language. A lot of other great stuff in here, but it's worth reading for that one alone.
July 19, 2012
Exhilarating and insightful poems. Each creates a snapshot of emotions or scene ever so exquisitely.
October 2, 2013
7,5/10
June 1, 2015
Not many likes in this collection for me.
*Past-Lives Therapy
*The Avenue of Earthly Delights
*The Altar
*Demonology
*I Climbed a Tree to Make Sure
*Whispered in the Ear
*I've Had My Little Stroll
*Past-Lives Therapy
*The Avenue of Earthly Delights
*The Altar
*Demonology
*I Climbed a Tree to Make Sure
*Whispered in the Ear
*I've Had My Little Stroll
April 25, 2019
I always finish a Simic collection with a smile on my face. "And Then I Think" is a personal favorite from this book. Also: bonus points for having a title that rhymes with the author's name.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews