"Speaking in Tongues": Exile and Internal Translation in the Poetry of Charles Simic

Abstract

In his essays and interviews, Charles Simic often observes that he thinks of himself primarily as an poet with profound roots in literature and culture: the poetry of Whitman, Dickinson, and Roethke, in particular. And to support his case for this lineage, he also points to his interest in contemporary art, especially that of the New York School; his passion for jazz and blues lyrics from the 1920s and 1930s; and his research in folklore. While it is true that the experiences of Charles Simic, the American poet, provide a uniquely cohesive force in his verse, it is also true that the voices of the foreign and of the mother tongue memory still echo in many poems: his childhood memories from Yugoslavia during World War II, before the family emigrated first to Paris and later to Chicago; his reading in European and especially in Serbian folklore and myth; his interest in the French surrealist movement and its specific echo among Serbian poets; his study of modem German and French philosophy; and also his translations of Vasko Popa's poetics.