Books by Charles Simic

From one of America's most beloved poets, a piercing new collection reflecting on the characters and encounters that haunt us through this life and into the nextLeading us into a city stirring with gravediggers and beggars, lovers and dogs, Charles Simic returns with a brilliant collection full of his singular wit, dark humor, and tenderheartedness. In poems that are often as spare as they are monumental, he captures the fleeting moments of modern life-peering inside pawnshop windows, brushing shoulders with strangers on the street, and walking familiar cemetery rows-to uncover all the beauty and worry hiding in plain sight. As the poet reflects on a lifetime's worth of pleasure and loss, he recalls instances when he "made excuses and hurried away," and considers the way memory always trails just behind. No Land in Sight is a testament to all we leave in our wake and, simultaneously, all we hang on to: the passing minutes, the evening's stillness, and the many lives we inhabit in dim thresholds and bright mornings alike.

First published in 1976, this astonishing anthology from two U.S. Poet Laureates, Charles Simic and Mark Strand, compiles a selection of the finest translated literature of the time, showcasing the then-little-known writers who had a profound influence on the current generation of poets.