[{"id":"1297","cataloger_name":["Masoumeh,Zaare"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds"],"source_collection_label":["SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds"],"collection_contributing_unit":["Records Management and Archives"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":[""],"collection_source_collection_description":["The fonds consists of some administrative records of the SGWU Department of English and the Concordia Department of English between 1971 and 2000. It also consists of some SGWU Department of English records related to student academic activities in the 1940s and to public readings and lectures, and a few interviews, produced between 1966 and 1972. The fonds mainly includes minutes of departmental meetings and some course timetables. It also includes some student papers in bound volumes and 63 sound recordings (80 audio reels) mainly composed of poetry readings (see the Concordia SpokenWeb project which uses this material) but also a few lectures given at SGWU. There are also loose typed sheets describing some of the SGWU poetry readings."],"collection_source_collection_id":["I086"],"persistent_url":["http://archives.concordia.ca/I086"],"item_title":["Charles Simic at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 19 November 1971"],"item_title_source":["Cataloguer"],"item_title_note":["\"POETRY READING CHARLES SIMAC #1 I006/SR115.1\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. CHARLES SIMAC refers to Charles Simic. SIMAC is misspelled. |I006-11-115.1\" written on sticker on the reel.\n\n\"POETRY READING CHARLES SIMAC #2 I006/SR115.2\" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. CHARLES SIMAC refers to Charles Simic. SIMAC is misspelled. \"I006-11-115.2\" written on sticker on the reel"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Documentary recording"],"item_series_title":["The Poetry Series"],"item_subseries_title":["Poetry 6"],"item_identifiers":["[I006-11-115.1, I006-11-115.2]"],"creator_names":["Simic, Charles"],"creator_names_search":["Simic, Charles"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/22044\",\"name\":\"Simic, Charles\",\"dates\":\" 1938-\",\"notes\":\"Poet, essayist and teacher Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia on May 9, 1938 to Serbian parents. During his childhood, Simic witnessed both the military occupation by the Nazis during the Second World War, and then by the Soviet Union. His family left Yugoslavia for Paris in 1953, and then to Chicago in 1954. His first poem was published in the Chicago Review in 1959 when Simic was 19 years old. In 1961, Simic was enlisted in the US Army, and served until 1963 when he moved to New York City and enrolled in New York University. Simic met his future wife, designer Helene Dubin, with whom he had two children. Upon graduation with a B.A. in Russian in 1966, he worked as an editorial assistant for Aperture, a photography magazine. Simic’s first collection of poems, What the Grass Says (Kayak) was published in 1967 and was followed in 1969 with Somewhere Among Us a Stone Is Taking Notes (Kayak), and a number of anthologies, including Young American Poets (Follett Publishing Co, 1968), Contemporary American Poets (World Publishing Company, 1969), and Major Young American Poets (World Publishing Co, 1971). In 1970, Simic began teaching English at the University of California at Hayward, and earned a PEN International Award for his translation of Fire Gardens (New Rivers Press), written by Ivan V. Lalic. At that time, Simic also published an anthology of translations Four Modern Yugoslav Poets: Ivan V. Lalic, Branko Miljkovic, Milorad Pavic, Ljubomir Simovic, translations of Vasko Popa’s The Little Box (Charioteer Press, 1970) and his own collection of poetry, Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971). Simic then received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, published White (New Rivers Press, 1972) and took a position of associate professor at the University of New Hampshire in 1973, which he would hold for over thirty years. A wildly prolific writer, Simic published poetry, translations and non-fiction, including Charon’s Cosmology (G. Braziller, 1977) which won the National Book Award, School for Dark Thoughts (Banyan Press, 1978), Classic Ballroom Dances (G. Braziller, 1980) which won both the Harriet Monroe Poetry Award and the Di Castagnola Award, Austerities (G. Braziller, 1982), Weather Forecast for Utopia and Vicinity (Station Hill Press, 1983), Unending Blues (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), Brooms: Selected Poems (Edge, 1978), Selected Poems 1963-1983 (G. Braziller, 1985), The World Doesn’t End (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989) which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990, The Book of Gods and Devils (Harcourt Brace, 1990) and Hotel Insomnia (Harcourt, 1992). The 1990s saw Simic publishing numerous translations from Yugoslavian poets. Collections of Simic’s essays and memoirs include The Unemployed Fortune-Teller (Michigan Press, 1994), Orphan Factory (University of Michigan, 1997), Walking the Black Cat (Harcourt Brace & Co, 1996) and his more recent poetry collection The Voice at 3:00 am: Selected Late and New Poems (A.W. Ellsworth, 2003). In 2007, Simic was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate. Simic resides in Strafford, New Hampshire.\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Author\",\"Performer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"name\":\"\",\"dates\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[]}]"],"Performance_Date":[1971],"material_description":["[{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"Scotch\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"\",\"sound_quality\":\"Good\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"},{\"side\":\"\",\"image\":\"\",\"other\":\"\",\"extent\":\"1/4 inch\",\"AV_types\":\"Audio\",\"tape_brand\":\"\",\"generations\":\"\",\"Conservation\":\"\",\"equalization\":\"\",\"playback_mode\":\"Mono\",\"playing_speed\":\"\",\"sound_quality\":\"Good\",\"recording_type\":\"Analogue\",\"storage_capacity\":\"\",\"physical_condition\":\"\",\"track_configuration\":\"\",\"material_designation\":\"Reel to Reel\",\"physical_composition\":\"Magnetic Tape\",\"accompanying_material\":\"\",\"other_physical_description\":\"\"}]"],"material_designations":["Reel to Reel","Reel to Reel"],"physical_compositions":["Magnetic Tape","Magnetic Tape"],"recording_type":["Analogue","Analogue"],"AV_type":["Audio","Audio"],"playback_mode":["Mono","Mono"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"1971 11 19\",\"type\":\"Performance Date\",\"notes\":\"Date specified by Richard Somner in I006-11-106.4\",\"source\":\"Previous recording \"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080570\",\"venue\":\"Hall Building Room H-651\",\"notes\":\"Previous researcher\",\"address\":\"1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada\",\"latitude\":\"45.4972758\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57893043\"}]"],"Address":["1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada"],"Venue":["Hall Building Room H-651"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Charles Simic reads mostly from Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971) as well as  a selection of, at the time, new and unpublished poems from a notebook that would later be published in Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk (G. Braziller, 1974) and Selected Early Poems (G. Braziller, 1999)."],"contents":["charles_simic_i006-11-115-1.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\n\nIntroducer\n00:00:05\nA short quotation which appears in the Contributors' Notes to Paul Carroll's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15459057] anthology The Young American Poets. Quote: “As far back as I can remember there was a kind of dumbness within me, a need that sought expression. How it eventually materialized in the act of writing a poem belongs to a biography which I have only been able to recount in a few successful poems. As for the finished product, the poem, my need requires it to be of, as Whitman [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81438] said, the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, and further, if they are not yours as much as mine, they are nothing, or next to nothing. On a subjective level, I write to give being to that vibration which is my life, and to survive in a hard time”. Charles Simic [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q722555].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:00:57\nThank you. Is this mic also for the audience or just for the tape? Oh it is, okay. I'll be reading mostly from my third book, including also some more recent poems. And I'll start off with a very recent poem which is called \"Breasts\".\n \nCharles Simic\n00:02:07\nReads \"Breasts\" from Dismantling the Silence.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:05:05\nThis is not from the book. A series of poems really dealing with inanimate objects. And the first poem in the series is called \"Table\".\n \nCharles Simic\n00:05:27\nReads \"Table\" from Dismantling the Silence.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:06:55\nReads \"Stone\" from Dismantling the Silence.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:08:14\nThere's a poem about a fork, and also a poem about a spoon and knife, and I'll read \"The Fork\".\n \nCharles Simic\n00:08:26\nReads \"The Fork\" Dismantling the Silence.\n\nCharles Simic\n00:09:12\nReads \"My Shoes\" from Dismantling the Silence.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:10:42\nThe last one of these has not been included in the book. I only discovered it about a year ago, in a notebook, but it was written around the same time, and I've sort of been fooling around with it. It's called \"Brooms\".  There's five parts. I'll just make a little pause within each part.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:11:13\nReads \"Brooms\", Part I [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:11:43\nReads \"Brooms\", Part II [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:12:41\nReads \"Brooms\", Part III [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:13:24\nReads \"Brooms\", Part IV [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:14:06\nReads \"Brooms\", Part V [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:14:55\nI'll read you the last poem of, in the book of this particular series, which really has nothing to do with objects, but it's a poem in which I imagine what would happen if someone really penetrated one of these inanimate objects, like his pores, kind of a Christopher Columbus [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7322] of entering an ashtray or something. It's called \"Explorers\".\n \nCharles Simic\n00:15:33\nReads \"Explorers\" from Dismantling the Silence.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:17:13\nLet's see. This is, this is called \"The Inner Man\".\n \nCharles Simic\n00:17:40\nReads \"The Inner Man\" from  Dismantling the Silence.\n\nCharles Simic\n00:19:06\nThis poem, this next poem is called \"The Animals\". I wrote it in New York City [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60], after living in New York City for about five-six years, and lamenting the pastoral quality of my first book, and my inability to return to that kind of nature poetry. I realized that I hadn't seen a tree or an animal in about three or four years, and yet at the same time writing, you know, occasionally about some cows, or, you know, and I was saying, what are these animals, you know, these shadowy animals. Anyway, here's the poem. \"The Animals\".\n \nCharles Simic\n00:19:46\nReads \"The Animals\" from Dismantling the Silence.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:21:07\nLet's see. Sort of change to some different kinds of poems. Here's a poem about Chicago [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1297]. Going back to Chicago. And, to see my mother. And...it's all there anyway. Hopefully. There's seven parts.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:22:03\nReads \"Chicago\", Part I.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:22:43\nReads \"Chicago\", Part II.\n\nCharles Simic\n00:23:17\nReads \"Chicago\", Part III.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:23:57\nReads \"Chicago\", Part IV.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:24:35\nReads \"Chicago\", Part V.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:25:06\nReads \"Chicago\", Part VI.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:25:33\nReads \"Chicago\", Part VII.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:26:39\nLet's see. I can't find it. Maybe it's not written yet. Oh here it is, yeah. \n \nCharles Simic\n00:27:01\nReads \"Tapestry\" from Dismantling the Silence.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:28:15\nThis is a very different kind of poem. The material for the the poem is, are, cliches, working with, with awful cliches, things which were totally beaten to death and, you know, can't be used anymore. Or proverbs, popular wisdom, and I'm twisting it all around, trying to reverse the kind of universe that is implied by, by let's say proverbs, if you get up in the morning and such and such a thing happens. There is something very deterministic about it, and to reverse that, to give it a little fresh air, I'll turn it around. And so I have a sequence of six poems which are entirely made up of these things, and they're called, the common title is \"Concerning my Neighbors, the Hittites\", and the...why the Hittites [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5406]...why not? [Laughter]. Hittites were simply something that I had not the slightest idea about and I sort of saw ourselves one day becoming the Hittites, you know, somebody sitting one day in some future century and, our century being, sort of the Hittites, you know. And so there are six poems, and, I guess that's about all to be said.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:29:58\nReads \"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\", Part I [published later in Selected Early Poems].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:31:21\nReads \"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\", Part II [published later in Selected Early Poems].\n \nUnknown\n00:32:09\nSilence [pause].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:33:20\nReads \"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\", Part III [published later in Selected Early Poems].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:34:20\nReads \"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\", Part IV [ [published later in Selected Early Poems; includes extra stanzas not included in the published version of the poem].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:35:12\nReads \"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\", Part V [published later in Selected Early Poems].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:36:14\nReads \"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\", Part VI [published later in Selected Early Poems].\n\nCharles Simic\n00:36:23\nDo you, we need a break? Should we take a break? Huh? No, yes. No. Take a break. Yeah, let's take a ten-minute break.  \n\nAudience\n00:36:30\nApplause [cut off].\n \nEND\n00:36:39\n\n\ncharles_simic_i006-11-115-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\n\nCharles Simic\n00:00:00\nI was asking [Ksemi Rothers (?)] about, you know, who are my great grand-uncles, and great-grandfathers and so on, and I found out that they all were killed or disappeared in some completely forgotten nineteenth-century Balkan wars which no one knows anymore the cause or the reason or why they were started. And so this poem kind of happened out of that. It's called \"Marching\". \n \nCharles Simic \n00:00:47\nReads \"Marching\" from Dismantling the Silence.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:03:28\nThis is a kind of a, you could say that it's sort of an elegy for my father, in seven parts.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:03:47\nReads “George Simic” [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:07:44\nThis is a love poem. I have a series of love poems in the new book but this is one of them. And I might use the title of this poem as the title of the new book. The title is \"Return to a place lit by a glass of milk\".\n \nCharles Simic\n00:08:08\nReads \"Return to a place lit by a glass of milk\" [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\n \nCharles Simic\n00:09:20\nI want to read a couple more poems now. \"Dismantling the Silence\".\n \nCharles Simicn\n00:09:54\nReads \"Dismantling the Silence\" from Dismantling the Silence.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:11:17\nThe last poem in this book is called \"Errata\" for the good reason that after I finished the book I felt again, you know, a sense of frustration. I didn't say everything. And so each of the lines in this particular poem are really, refer to actual lines in the book. I'm kind of correcting myself. \"Errata\".\n \nCharles Simic\n00:11:53\nReads \"Errata\" from Dismantling the Silence.\n \nCharles Simic\n00:13:20\nThank you.  \n\nAudience\n00:13:23\nApplause.\n \nIntroducer\n00:13:35\nThe next reading will be on January 14th. Dorothy Livesay [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1250325] will read that night.\n \nEND\n00:13:44\n"],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"Year-Specific Information:\\n\\nIn 1971, Simic was teaching at the University of California at Hayward, and had published his third book, Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971).\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Local Connections:\\n\\nAny specific connections Simic had with Montreal or Sir George Williams University are unknown at this point, but Simic was an important and influential figure in American poetry, which no doubt had an impact on Canadian writers.\",\"type\":\"General\"},{\"note\":\"Original transcript by Rachel Kyne\\n\\nOriginal print catalogue, introduction, research and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones \\n\\nAdditional research and edits by Ali Barillaro\\n\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"},{\"note\":\"2 reel-to-reel tapes>CD>2 digital files\",\"type\":\"Preservation\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/young-american-poets/oclc/1071394844&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Carroll, Paul. The Young American Poets. Chicago: Big Table Publishing, 1970. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-encyclopedia-of-american-literature/oclc/769478515&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Hart, Henry. \\\"Simic, Charles\\\". The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Jay Parini (ed). Oxford University Press, 2004. \"},{\"url\":\"http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=H0EjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=36EFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6219,3330526&dq=sir+george+williams+poetry&hl=en\",\"citation\":\"“General: Poetry Reading”. The Gazette. 19 November 1971. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/concise-oxford-companion-to-english-literature/oclc/869601178&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Simic, Charles\\\". The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer (eds). Oxford University Press, 2007. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-american-literature/oclc/750769493&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Simic, Charles\\\". The Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart (ed), Phillip W. Leininger (rev). Oxford University Press, 1995. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/oxford-companion-to-english-literature/oclc/937869384&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"\\\"Simic, Charles”. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Dinah Birch (ed). Oxford University Press, 2009. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/dismantling-the-silence/oclc/1154942465&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Simic, Charles. Dismantling the Silence. New York: Braziller, 1971. \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/return-to-a-place-lit-by-a-glass-of-milk/oclc/1154834086&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Simic, Charles. Return to a place lit by a glass of milk. New York: Braziller, 1974.  \"},{\"url\":\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/charles-simic-selected-early-poems/oclc/1101269207&referer=brief_results\",\"citation\":\"Simic, Charles. Selected Early Poems. New York: Braziller, 1999. \"},{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"“Simic, Charles, 1938-”. Literature Online Bibliography. Cambridge, UK: Proquest LLC, 2008.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670548945502208,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:53.477Z","digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0115-1_tape.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0115-1_tape.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Charles Simic Tape Box 1 - Reel\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/I0006_11_0115-1_front.jpg\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"I0006_11_0115-1_front.jpg\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-0cAe1GF8xZsc62jpUDXwgvyCd6ZmvSw\",\"title\":\"Charles Simic Tape Box 1 - 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Spine\",\"credit\":\"Drew Bernet\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Photograph\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/charles_simic_i006-11-115-1.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"charles_simic_i006-11-115-1.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:36:39\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"88 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"charles_simic_i006-11-115-1.mp3 [File 1 of 2]\\n\\nIntroducer\\n00:00:05\\nA short quotation which appears in the Contributors' Notes to Paul Carroll's [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15459057] anthology The Young American Poets. Quote: “As far back as I can remember there was a kind of dumbness within me, a need that sought expression. How it eventually materialized in the act of writing a poem belongs to a biography which I have only been able to recount in a few successful poems. As for the finished product, the poem, my need requires it to be of, as Whitman [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81438] said, the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, and further, if they are not yours as much as mine, they are nothing, or next to nothing. On a subjective level, I write to give being to that vibration which is my life, and to survive in a hard time”. Charles Simic [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q722555].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:00:57\\nThank you. Is this mic also for the audience or just for the tape? Oh it is, okay. I'll be reading mostly from my third book, including also some more recent poems. And I'll start off with a very recent poem which is called \\\"Breasts\\\".\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:02:07\\nReads \\\"Breasts\\\" from Dismantling the Silence.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:05:05\\nThis is not from the book. A series of poems really dealing with inanimate objects. And the first poem in the series is called \\\"Table\\\".\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:05:27\\nReads \\\"Table\\\" from Dismantling the Silence.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:06:55\\nReads \\\"Stone\\\" from Dismantling the Silence.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:08:14\\nThere's a poem about a fork, and also a poem about a spoon and knife, and I'll read \\\"The Fork\\\".\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:08:26\\nReads \\\"The Fork\\\" Dismantling the Silence.\\n\\nCharles Simic\\n00:09:12\\nReads \\\"My Shoes\\\" from Dismantling the Silence.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:10:42\\nThe last one of these has not been included in the book. I only discovered it about a year ago, in a notebook, but it was written around the same time, and I've sort of been fooling around with it. It's called \\\"Brooms\\\".  There's five parts. I'll just make a little pause within each part.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:11:13\\nReads \\\"Brooms\\\", Part I [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:11:43\\nReads \\\"Brooms\\\", Part II [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:12:41\\nReads \\\"Brooms\\\", Part III [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:13:24\\nReads \\\"Brooms\\\", Part IV [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:14:06\\nReads \\\"Brooms\\\", Part V [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:14:55\\nI'll read you the last poem of, in the book of this particular series, which really has nothing to do with objects, but it's a poem in which I imagine what would happen if someone really penetrated one of these inanimate objects, like his pores, kind of a Christopher Columbus [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7322] of entering an ashtray or something. It's called \\\"Explorers\\\".\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:15:33\\nReads \\\"Explorers\\\" from Dismantling the Silence.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:17:13\\nLet's see. This is, this is called \\\"The Inner Man\\\".\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:17:40\\nReads \\\"The Inner Man\\\" from  Dismantling the Silence.\\n\\nCharles Simic\\n00:19:06\\nThis poem, this next poem is called \\\"The Animals\\\". I wrote it in New York City [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60], after living in New York City for about five-six years, and lamenting the pastoral quality of my first book, and my inability to return to that kind of nature poetry. I realized that I hadn't seen a tree or an animal in about three or four years, and yet at the same time writing, you know, occasionally about some cows, or, you know, and I was saying, what are these animals, you know, these shadowy animals. Anyway, here's the poem. \\\"The Animals\\\".\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:19:46\\nReads \\\"The Animals\\\" from Dismantling the Silence.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:21:07\\nLet's see. Sort of change to some different kinds of poems. Here's a poem about Chicago [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1297]. Going back to Chicago. And, to see my mother. And...it's all there anyway. Hopefully. There's seven parts.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:22:03\\nReads \\\"Chicago\\\", Part I.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:22:43\\nReads \\\"Chicago\\\", Part II.\\n\\nCharles Simic\\n00:23:17\\nReads \\\"Chicago\\\", Part III.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:23:57\\nReads \\\"Chicago\\\", Part IV.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:24:35\\nReads \\\"Chicago\\\", Part V.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:25:06\\nReads \\\"Chicago\\\", Part VI.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:25:33\\nReads \\\"Chicago\\\", Part VII.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:26:39\\nLet's see. I can't find it. Maybe it's not written yet. Oh here it is, yeah. \\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:27:01\\nReads \\\"Tapestry\\\" from Dismantling the Silence.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:28:15\\nThis is a very different kind of poem. The material for the the poem is, are, cliches, working with, with awful cliches, things which were totally beaten to death and, you know, can't be used anymore. Or proverbs, popular wisdom, and I'm twisting it all around, trying to reverse the kind of universe that is implied by, by let's say proverbs, if you get up in the morning and such and such a thing happens. There is something very deterministic about it, and to reverse that, to give it a little fresh air, I'll turn it around. And so I have a sequence of six poems which are entirely made up of these things, and they're called, the common title is \\\"Concerning my Neighbors, the Hittites\\\", and the...why the Hittites [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5406]...why not? [Laughter]. Hittites were simply something that I had not the slightest idea about and I sort of saw ourselves one day becoming the Hittites, you know, somebody sitting one day in some future century and, our century being, sort of the Hittites, you know. And so there are six poems, and, I guess that's about all to be said.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:29:58\\nReads \\\"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\\\", Part I [published later in Selected Early Poems].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:31:21\\nReads \\\"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\\\", Part II [published later in Selected Early Poems].\\n \\nUnknown\\n00:32:09\\nSilence [pause].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:33:20\\nReads \\\"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\\\", Part III [published later in Selected Early Poems].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:34:20\\nReads \\\"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\\\", Part IV [ [published later in Selected Early Poems; includes extra stanzas not included in the published version of the poem].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:35:12\\nReads \\\"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\\\", Part V [published later in Selected Early Poems].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:36:14\\nReads \\\"Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites\\\", Part VI [published later in Selected Early Poems].\\n\\nCharles Simic\\n00:36:23\\nDo you, we need a break? Should we take a break? Huh? No, yes. No. Take a break. Yeah, let's take a ten-minute break.  \\n\\nAudience\\n00:36:30\\nApplause [cut off].\\n \\nEND\\n00:36:39\\n\",\"notes\":\"Charles Simic reads mostly from Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971) as well as  a selection of, at the time, new and unpublished poems from a notebook that would later be published in Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk (G. Braziller, 1974) and Selected Early Poems (G. Braziller, 1999). \\n\\n00:00- Unknown introducer introduces Charles Simic. [INDEX: quotation from the Contributor's notes to Paul Carroll’s anthology, The Young American Poets, Walt Whitman.]\\n00:57- Charles Simic introduces reading, and “Breasts”. [INDEX: reading from his third book (Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)), as well as recent poems; this poem        published in 1974 in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk (G. Braziller, 1974).]      \\n02:07- Reads “Breasts”.\\n05:05- Introduces “Table”. [INDEX: not from the book Dismantling the Silence, dealing with inanimate objects.]\\n05:27- Reads “Table”.\\n06:55- Reads “Stone”. [INDEX: from Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n08:14- Introduces “The Fork”. [INDEX: poem about a spoon and a knife]\\n08:26- Reads “The Fork”. [INDEX: most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n09:12- Reads “My Shoes”. [INDEX: most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n10:42- Introduces “Brooms”, parts I-V. [INDEX: written in a notebook, not included in   published book with others; published in 1974 in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk \\t(G. Braziller, 1974).]\\n11:13- Reads “Brooms” Part I.\\n11:43- Reads “Brooms” Part II.\\n12:41- Reads “Brooms” Part III.\\n13:24- Reads “Brooms” Part IV.\\n14:06- Reads “Brooms” Part V.\\n14:55- Introduces “Explorers” [INDEX: last poem in book of particular series, Christopher Columbus entering an ashtray.] \\n15:33- Reads “Explorers”. [INDEX: most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n17:13- Reads “The Inner Man”. [INDEX: most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n19:06- Introduces “The Animals”. [INDEX: written in NYC, pastoral quality of first book,     inability to return to nature poetry, pastoral animals.]\\n19:46- Reads “The Animals”. [INDEX: in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971).]\\n21:07- Introduces “Chicago”, parts I-VII. [INDEX: about going back to Chicago, Simic’s      mother, perhaps not in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971).]\\n22:03- Reads “Chicago” Part I.\\n22:43- Reads “Chicago” Part II.\\n23:17- Reads “Chicago” Part III.\\n23:57- Reads “Chicago” Part IV.\\n24:35- Reads “Chicago” Part V.\\n25:06- Reads “Chicago” Part VI.\\n25:33- Reads “Chicago” Part VII.\\n27:01- Reads “Tapestry”. [INDEX: most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n28:15- Introduces “Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites”, Parts I-VI. [INDEX: writing with cliches, proverbs, popular wisdom to twist them around, Hittites.]\\n29:58- Reads “Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites” Part I.\\n31:21- Reads “Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites” Part II.\\n33:20- Reading interrupted by pause, either Part II is continued or part III begins. [INDEX: discrepancies between published versions and the reading are noted here.]\\n34:20- Reads “Concerning my Neighbors, the Hittites” Part IV.\\n35:12- Reads “Concerning my Neighbors, the Hittites” Part V.\\n36:14- Reads “Concerning my Neighbors, the Hittites” Part VI.\\n36:39- Introduces “Marching”. [INDEX: Ksemi Rothers, Simic’s ancestors, Balkan wars, most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971).]\\n37:27- Reads “Marching”.\\n40:08- Introduces “Elegy for my father” [INDEX: elegy for Simic’s father, seven parts; published in 1974 as “George Simic” in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk (G.   \\tBraziller, 1974).]\\n40:27- Reads “Elegy for my father”.\\n44:24- Introduces “Return to a place lit by a glass of milk”. [INDEX: love poem, might use title for title of new book.]\\n44:47- Reads “Return to a place lit by a glass of milk”. [INDEX: published in 1974 in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk (G. Braziller, 1974)]\\n46:34- Reads “Dismantling the Silence”. [INDEX: from Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n47:57- Introduces “Errata”. [INDEX: after finishing a book felt a sense of frustration of not being able to say everything, each line refers to actual lines in the book.]\\n48:33- Reads “Errata”.\\n50:15- Unknown speaker announces next reading [Dorothy Livesay on January 14.]\\n50:24.10- END OF RECORDING.\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/charles-simic-at-sgwu-1971/#1\"},{\"file_url\":\"https://files.spokenweb.ca/concordia/sgw/audio/all_mp3/charles_simic_i006-11-115-2.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3\",\"filename\":\"charles_simic_i006-11-115-2.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"\",\"duration\":\"00:13:44\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"33 MB\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"charles_simic_i006-11-115-2.mp3 [File 2 of 2]\\n\\nCharles Simic\\n00:00:00\\nI was asking [Ksemi Rothers (?)] about, you know, who are my great grand-uncles, and great-grandfathers and so on, and I found out that they all were killed or disappeared in some completely forgotten nineteenth-century Balkan wars which no one knows anymore the cause or the reason or why they were started. And so this poem kind of happened out of that. It's called \\\"Marching\\\". \\n \\nCharles Simic \\n00:00:47\\nReads \\\"Marching\\\" from Dismantling the Silence.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:03:28\\nThis is a kind of a, you could say that it's sort of an elegy for my father, in seven parts.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:03:47\\nReads “George Simic” [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:07:44\\nThis is a love poem. I have a series of love poems in the new book but this is one of them. And I might use the title of this poem as the title of the new book. The title is \\\"Return to a place lit by a glass of milk\\\".\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:08:08\\nReads \\\"Return to a place lit by a glass of milk\\\" [published later in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk].\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:09:20\\nI want to read a couple more poems now. \\\"Dismantling the Silence\\\".\\n \\nCharles Simicn\\n00:09:54\\nReads \\\"Dismantling the Silence\\\" from Dismantling the Silence.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:11:17\\nThe last poem in this book is called \\\"Errata\\\" for the good reason that after I finished the book I felt again, you know, a sense of frustration. I didn't say everything. And so each of the lines in this particular poem are really, refer to actual lines in the book. I'm kind of correcting myself. \\\"Errata\\\".\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:11:53\\nReads \\\"Errata\\\" from Dismantling the Silence.\\n \\nCharles Simic\\n00:13:20\\nThank you.  \\n\\nAudience\\n00:13:23\\nApplause.\\n \\nIntroducer\\n00:13:35\\nThe next reading will be on January 14th. Dorothy Livesay [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1250325] will read that night.\\n \\nEND\\n00:13:44\\n\",\"notes\":\"Charles Simic reads mostly from Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971) as well as  a selection of, at the time, new and unpublished poems from a notebook that would later be published in Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk (G. Braziller, 1974) and Selected Early Poems (G. Braziller, 1999). \\n\\n00:00- Unknown introducer introduces Charles Simic. [INDEX: quotation from the Contributor's notes to Paul Carroll’s anthology, The Young American Poets, Walt Whitman.]\\n00:57- Charles Simic introduces reading, and “Breasts”. [INDEX: reading from his third book (Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)), as well as recent poems; this poem        published in 1974 in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk (G. Braziller, 1974).]      \\n02:07- Reads “Breasts”.\\n05:05- Introduces “Table”. [INDEX: not from the book Dismantling the Silence, dealing with inanimate objects.]\\n05:27- Reads “Table”.\\n06:55- Reads “Stone”. [INDEX: from Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n08:14- Introduces “The Fork”. [INDEX: poem about a spoon and a knife]\\n08:26- Reads “The Fork”. [INDEX: most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n09:12- Reads “My Shoes”. [INDEX: most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n10:42- Introduces “Brooms”, parts I-V. [INDEX: written in a notebook, not included in   published book with others; published in 1974 in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk \\t(G. Braziller, 1974).]\\n11:13- Reads “Brooms” Part I.\\n11:43- Reads “Brooms” Part II.\\n12:41- Reads “Brooms” Part III.\\n13:24- Reads “Brooms” Part IV.\\n14:06- Reads “Brooms” Part V.\\n14:55- Introduces “Explorers” [INDEX: last poem in book of particular series, Christopher Columbus entering an ashtray.] \\n15:33- Reads “Explorers”. [INDEX: most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n17:13- Reads “The Inner Man”. [INDEX: most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n19:06- Introduces “The Animals”. [INDEX: written in NYC, pastoral quality of first book,     inability to return to nature poetry, pastoral animals.]\\n19:46- Reads “The Animals”. [INDEX: in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971).]\\n21:07- Introduces “Chicago”, parts I-VII. [INDEX: about going back to Chicago, Simic’s      mother, perhaps not in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971).]\\n22:03- Reads “Chicago” Part I.\\n22:43- Reads “Chicago” Part II.\\n23:17- Reads “Chicago” Part III.\\n23:57- Reads “Chicago” Part IV.\\n24:35- Reads “Chicago” Part V.\\n25:06- Reads “Chicago” Part VI.\\n25:33- Reads “Chicago” Part VII.\\n27:01- Reads “Tapestry”. [INDEX: most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n28:15- Introduces “Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites”, Parts I-VI. [INDEX: writing with cliches, proverbs, popular wisdom to twist them around, Hittites.]\\n29:58- Reads “Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites” Part I.\\n31:21- Reads “Concerning My Neighbors, the Hittites” Part II.\\n33:20- Reading interrupted by pause, either Part II is continued or part III begins. [INDEX: discrepancies between published versions and the reading are noted here.]\\n34:20- Reads “Concerning my Neighbors, the Hittites” Part IV.\\n35:12- Reads “Concerning my Neighbors, the Hittites” Part V.\\n36:14- Reads “Concerning my Neighbors, the Hittites” Part VI.\\n36:39- Introduces “Marching”. [INDEX: Ksemi Rothers, Simic’s ancestors, Balkan wars, most likely in Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971).]\\n37:27- Reads “Marching”.\\n40:08- Introduces “Elegy for my father” [INDEX: elegy for Simic’s father, seven parts; published in 1974 as “George Simic” in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk (G.   \\tBraziller, 1974).]\\n40:27- Reads “Elegy for my father”.\\n44:24- Introduces “Return to a place lit by a glass of milk”. [INDEX: love poem, might use title for title of new book.]\\n44:47- Reads “Return to a place lit by a glass of milk”. [INDEX: published in 1974 in Return to a place lit by a glass of milk (G. Braziller, 1974)]\\n46:34- Reads “Dismantling the Silence”. [INDEX: from Dismantling the Silence (G. Braziller, 1971)]\\n47:57- Introduces “Errata”. [INDEX: after finishing a book felt a sense of frustration of not being able to say everything, each line refers to actual lines in the book.]\\n48:33- Reads “Errata”.\\n50:15- Unknown speaker announces next reading [Dorothy Livesay on January 14.]\\n50:24.10- END OF RECORDING.\",\"title\":\"\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/charles-simic-at-sgwu-1971/#2\"}]"],"score":5.2900567}]