Cantos by Ericka Koehler

Charles Simic is an American poet born in 1938 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. His childhood is full of traumatic events due to World War II. The war forced his family to emigrate to the United States. During his first years in the country, he lived in Chicago. He studied at New York University and later enlisted for the U.S. Army. In his twenties, he published What the Grass Says. After that, he started an extensive publication career, publishing not only in the United States but also abroad. “He has also published numerous translations of French, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian poetry and is the author of several books of essays, including the Orphan Factory. He has edited several anthologies, including an edition of The Best American Poetry in 1992 (“Poets.org: Charles Simic,” 2021).”

Simic has received numerous awards in his career as a poet and writer. It should be noted that as an immigrant, Simic did not speak the English language until he was fifteen years old. “In 2011, he was the recipient of the Frost Medal, presented annually for ‘lifetime achievement in poetry’ (“Poets.org: Charles Simic,” 2021).”

The literary work of Simic is part of Postmodernism. “[…] key elements in Postmodern American literature include more of a focus on the individual in society, a diversity of experience, with representations of voices, often angry or disenfranchised, struggling to be heard, and attempts to rationalize irrational phenomena, as well as a challenge to our basic beliefs about literature (“Module Eight Overview,” 2021).”

Following, we will analyze one of Simic’s poems called “Late September.” Here he addresses the post 9/11 psyche in the United States:

Late September

“The mail truck goes down the coast

Carrying a single letter.

At the end of a long pier

The bored seagull lifts a leg now and then

And forgets to put it down.

There is a menace in the air

Of tragedies in the making.

Last night you thought you heard television

In the house next door.

You were sure it was some new

Horror they were reporting,

So you went out to find out.

Barefoot, wearing just shorts.

It was only the sea sounding weary

After so many lifetimes

Of pretending to be rushing off somewhere

And never getting anywhere.

This morning, it felt like Sunday.

The heavens did their part

By casting no shadow along the boardwalk

Or the row of vacant cottages,

Among them a small church

With a dozen gray tombstones huddled close

As if they, too, had the shivers (Simic, 2003).”

In the poem “Late September,” Simic is lamenting. We can observe how he speaks about tragedies and even mentions the word “tombstones.”

The poem starts depicting tragedies from the first paragraph when, he says, “there is a menace in the air.” Later, he mentions the “horror they were reporting,” or “with a dozen gray tombstones huddled close as if they, too, had the shivers.” Simic also added elements of religion to create an impact in his message. He mentioned “heavens,” “church” or “Sunday” in which most people rest after so many days of work. Other elements make us think about the sea like “seagull,” “barefoot,” or “coast.”

The first impression that came to my mind after reading the poem was imagining a truck carrying a single letter, but this letter is not bringing good news, rather it is bringing just sadness.

I just imagined a place like California since it has a coast, but it could be somewhere in Florida too. I imagined someone living in one of those areas receives the sad news that his loved one died in the attack on Sept. 11.

This poem is written in free verse which allows the reader to have more access to it. The reader can feel more impact than if it was written in a traditional structure. In the poem, the author illustrates the fear and uncertainty that people felt from the tragedy with the following metaphor:

“[…] a dozen gray tombstones huddled close

As if they, too, had the shivers (Simic, 2003).”

I think that after September 11, many people were traumatized and felt that there might be more attacks on the United States at any moment. When they turned on the television, they didn’t expect to see any good news, only more tragedies.

In this poem, words like “September” or “eleven” are not mentioned at any time, but we can see the melancholy in it. Fear and sadness are present. The author emphasizes that people are in fear about what happened. People felt that any time another tragedy could happen.

Works Cited

Harvard Review Online: Charles Simic. 2018. Houghton Library at Harvard University.

https://harvardreview.org/contributor/charles-simic/ Accessed 20 Oct. 2021

Module Eight Overview. 2021. LIT-315 20th Century American Literature and Beyond.

     Southern New Hampshire University.

https://learn.snhu.edu/d2l/le/content/855290/viewContent/14964757/View

     Accessed 20 Oct. 2021

Poets.org: Charles Simic. 2021.

      https://poets.org/poet/charles-simic   Accessed 20 Oct. 2021

Simic, Charles. 2003. Late September. Poets.org.

      https://poets.org/poem/late-september   Accessed 20 Oct. 2021