Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk

Charles Simic

It seems quite silly, in a time where poetry is such a neglected art, to say that an author “burst on the scene” pretty much at any time. But Return to a Place... was Simic's literary bursting, after a few chapbooks on small presses. This was the nation at large's first look at the man who, sixteen years later, would be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (for The World Doesn't End); even this far back in his career, it's easy to see why.

Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk is, as its title would suggest, a fountain of surrealist beauty. Simic, however, has more control with his work than most of the surrealists/dadas were able to achieve, lending his material a leaner, sparer power than one normally finds in surrealist work:

“Green Buddhas
on the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
and spit out the teeth.”
(“Watermelons”)

All the slanted imagery, but with enough meaning close to the surface to be understandable. As well, the mix of humor and sorrow is a perfect translation of the feeling the surrealists strove to achieve and so often failed.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Get yourself a copy of this.