Charles Simic Reading

The University of Memphis English Department and the River City Writers' Series hosted Charles Simic for a reading as a part of the 1992-1993 series.
8:20 - the reading begins
Learn more about the River City Writers' Series: www.memphis.edu/english/river...

[@christophercitro9595]

Wow! Thank you for sharing this reading.

[@daniel.free.reverse]

I put this together so I thought I’d share. Here are timestamps for each poem, start and finish.
12:50 - 13:28 I was stolen by the gypsies. . .
13:33 - 14:06 We were so poor. . .
14:07 - 14:54 Everybody knows the story. . .
15:35 - 16:26 Ghost stories written. . .
16:53 - 17:43 A poem about sitting. . .
17:50 - 18:45 My guardian angel. . .
18:49 - 19:56 Once I knew. . .
23:29 - 26:43 St. Thomas Aquinas
28:12 - 31:35 Shelley
32:00 - 33:54 Paradise
34:56 - 36:12 In the Library
36:58 - 37:54 The Congress of the Insomniacs
39:21 - 40:27 The Prodigal
40:35 - 41:58 Clouds Gathering
43:00 - 44:22 Evening Walk
46:06 - 47:21 Beauty
49:20 - 50:41 Reading History
50:54 - 52:24 Via del Tritone
53:09 - 54:31 The Old World
54:58 - 56:05 Country Fair

[@spensert4933]

A great man with great skill.

[@spensert4933]

8:33 intro
(Reading short poems - made-up titles below)
11:50 (intro: autobiography notes)
12:50 poem Freud and gypsies
14:00 poem story about his grandad and Freud
15:50 poem about emily dickinson
16:50 poem anima on roof
18:00 poem guardian angel
--------
20:00 Gods and devils book - hitchhike to NYC 1958 - poems about coming to NYC and what he was reading then
23:30 St Thomas Aq. "i am a medieval philosopher in exile" (he tells his landlord)
27:00 (about Shelly and then a poem of that title)
28:10 Shelly
(30:50 he describes beggar like fencing master victorious)
32:10 Paradise "madness or you might call it paradise"
34:00 (introL he talks about his love of libraries - talking about octavio paz)
35:00 a dictionary of angels (about being in library and mysteries in unopened books)
35:10 congress of the insomniacs
39:20 Prodigal (about skinhead/hare krishna?)
------------
Poems from New Hampshire
40:38 Evening Poem ("like tragic actors in a theater on fire" sort of like Bukowski - New hampshire setting w wife)
42:44(intro: never got emerson and nature: nature is so cruel in new hampshire)
43:05 Evening Walk ("birds like children that won't come in from darkening woods")
-------------
45:20 (intro: student asked him about what Beauty with cap B was -- as in the 19th century writers")
46:05 Beauty
47:50 (intro another poem about a library and his experience reading history there - war casualties)
49:20 Reading HIstory
--------
Rome
51:00 (poem about rome)
"that monstrous heat that gives birth to false memories")
52:20 another Rome poem
53:18 THe Old WOrld
--------
New Hampshire
55:04 Country Faire