The poetry of Charles Simic specializes in illustrating the depths of the mundane. Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1938 (Ford). He is of Serbian origin. Naturally, his early life was dominated by the Nazi period. While much of his work derives from this period (Ford), he often explores the legacies of such an all-encompassing war against Western society and culture. Simic's father fled Yugoslavia in 1944 and reunited with the family only ten years later, in 1954, in the United States (Ford). In the United States, Simic worked a series of odd jobs until he joined the Army in 1961, returning to Europe as a military policeman in Germany and France (Ford). After some time in New York, he accepted a professorship at the University of New Hampshire in 1973, where he has remained ever since (Ford). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Simic's poetry is an exegesis of his time. His work embraces both the tragedy of war and the monotony of modern life. There are underlying currents of conflict in Simic's work. Tension arises between Europe and America, the profound and the mundane, and the profound, but perhaps fleeting, legacy of wartime Europe on Western life. Simic's work can be best understood as balancing these apparent contradictions in a candid and illuminating way. Simic's poems are not long and do not lose verbosity. For Simic, thoughts about everyday interactions and objects evoke important motifs and conflicts that have colored his life. Simic juxtaposes these tensions and interpolates his poems with a rewarding touch of simplicity. His work is best understood as an ode to the post-war mentality of relief and malaise, and perhaps a slight loss of words in modern life following the horrors and atrocities of the Nazi regime. Simic discusses the importance of brevity in his work in his interview with Michael Milburn. Although Simic's poems can be criticized as highly uniform in their structure and perhaps too short, he refuses to equate excellence with length. He describes to Milburn that: “'When I was 21, I wrote an 80-page poem about the cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition, very similar to Pound's Cantos. For a few months I thought it was a work of true greatness, then one day my eyes were opened'” (Milburn 157). Simic, throughout his life, was a voracious reader and consumer of historical and philosophical knowledge. However, he rarely inserts specific references, or even proper names, into his short poems. While Simic has the ability to go into a detailed account of the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, he sees the feeling of such pain as better described rather than related. He goes on to state that: “Now I can fit all my notions of heaven and earth on the cover of a match. By temperament, I am a miniaturist. I paint angels on the head of a pin. I make towers out of bread crumbs'” (157). Simic's minimalism reflects a tendency in postwar literature to avoid explicit statements and focus on the evocation of emotion. Simic is devoid of the stereotypical pretensions of the modern poet. Like his poetry, which depicts everyday life, Simic appreciates less educated and inexperienced readers and appreciates their engagement with his work. In his interview with Milburn, Simic explains that, “'Years ago in New York, while teaching poetry in schools, I realized that even a semi-literate juvenile delinquent can be an expert in poetry. My poems invited readers to use their imagination, and they had no difficulty in doing so'” (156). Simic's appreciation for imagination and foryounger readers demonstrate his almost humanistic faith in the value of a wide range of people involved in his work. This illustrates Simic's conscious approach and recognition of mass culture and the value of the individual in modern life. Simic's appreciation for the poor and working class is explored in an interview with J.M. Spalding. Simic exclaims to Spalding that “'Our cities are full of homeless people and crazy people walking around talking to themselves. Not many people seem to notice them. I watch them and eavesdrop on them'” (Spalding). While this admission may seem out of place, it helps characterize Simic's creative process. He states that “'I would rather live in Harlem than Westchester County'” (Spalding). Simic strives to be a poet whose work draws from and can speak to almost anyone. Simic's experiment in brevity is fundamentally rooted in his concept of the post-war world. For Simic, in contemporary Western life, there is no unifying national narrative that gives credence to the epic. In a post-Holocaust world that has rejected many forms of extreme patriotism, Simic is skeptical of supposedly common cultures. In his interview with Milburn, Simic states that: “'Our poets have a lot to say, but for that kind of long poetry you need a common culture, a religion you believe in, a mythology and a history - and, like everyone they know, that it is no longer available to us'” (Milburn 158). Simic appreciates humanists like Whitman who explore common cultures through connections to both nature and everyday life. However, Simic seems less convinced by Ginsberg's sometimes rote and referential depictions of postwar American life (158). Simic sees his work as a more simplistic beauty emerging from the vortex identified by Ginsberg. Simic writes that “'My poems are a kind of found poetry. I discover the little you see on the page in the longest strokes of writing'” (158). Simic's poems are both explanatory and applicable. His work is not rooted in a particular cultural narrative, but nevertheless explores post-war Western everyday life. Simic's minimalism extends to an ironic criticism of modern malaise and the contemporary human condition. At the conclusion of his book The World Does Not End, Simic writes, "'My secret identity is / The room is empty, / And the window is open'" (159). Here Simic's minimalism achieves a concrete connection with modern life. While his character longs to acknowledge his “secret identity,” he cannot help but be overwhelmed by the loneliness of his surroundings in the empty room and the countless possibilities that the open window alludes to. This reflects a position that is, in its essence, particularly postmodern. Of his poetry Simic states that “'I have always adhered to the old symbolist idea that the poet performs only part of the creative act, the reader does the rest'” (159). Simic sees the reader as an active actor in the poem, playing perhaps a more important role than the poet himself. Like the character sensitive to such solitary opportunity seeking to articulate his secret identity, the reader is able to attach a multitude of meanings to Simic's work in the solitary act of reading the poem. On this passage Simic explains that “'The poem must have arisen from an inspired and drastic act of slaughter'” (159). For Simic, there is no takeaway message from the conclusion of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book. It is up to the reader to make meaning for themselves. Simic's poetry also reflects the fleeting nature of the legacy of wartime and human tragedy in general. He states that “'Even history, which I take much more seriously than the history of my lovesand my heartbreaks, it's finally not a topic'” (161). Simic does not believe the story is complete or exhaustive enough to be considered a stand-alone topic in his work. A poem about a war experience can be extrapolated to make another point. He explains that, “'I often begin by talking about great horrors and injustices, but the words on the page take me to an entirely unrelated topic'” (161). In much of his wartime work, Simic shifts from observing Nazis or their crimes to a more universal interaction or object that can be interpreted by the reader from different points of view. In “Two Dogs,” Simic recalls “The shaking earth, death passed / A little white dog ran into the street / And got entangled in the soldiers' feet. A kick sent him flying as if he had wings. This is what I keep seeing! / Night is falling. A dog with wings. (Ford). In his episode, Simic begins the passage by equating the Nazi march with “passing death.” However, he moves away from the image of Nazi soldiers to focus on the dog flying against the night sky. Its simple yet evocative imagery points the reader in a few different directions and allows them to draw their own conclusions about the passage. Simic's interview with Mark Ford for The Paris Review touches on the tension and juxtaposition between Europe and the United States in Simic's account of life and poetry. Arriving in the United States for the first time, Simic felt a world away from Europe. He says: “'It was an astonishing sight in 1954. Europe was so gray and New York was so bright. European cities are like operatic sets. New York looked like a painted stage set in a carnival sideshow where the bearded lady, the sword swallowers, the snake charmers and the magicians made their appearances'” (Ford). For Simic, New York represented a land of opportunity and joy, while Europe was still reeling from the deep wounds of the catastrophic Nazi regime. However, the contrast between Nazi-era Europe and the contemporary era is not so stark for Simic. According to him, “'The same kind of crazy people who made the world the way it was when I was a child are still around. They want more wars, more prisons, more murders. It's all terribly familiar, very boring and scary, of course'” (Ford). Simic argues that the world is like this despite the fact that his mother felt that her family's life had been rendered meaningless by history (Ford). Despite the allure of modern American culture, the threats of wartime Europe persist into the modern era for Simic. Simic explores the legacy of post-war Europe in the United States and in his personal life in “Butcher Shop.” In the poem, Simic revels in the butcher shops in his Manhattan neighborhood that remind him of the staples of Belgrade. However, Simic cannot shed the darker connotations of these shops since the tragedy and destruction of World War II. Simic acknowledges that “'At that time there were still Polish and Italian butchers in that part of the city. Of course, it reminded me of Europe, of my childhood.'” This familiar sight must have taken Simic from comfort so far from the land where he grew up. But far from being a consoling homage to his home, in the poem he writes, "There is a block of wood where the bones are broken, / Scraped and clean - a dried river in its bed / Where they feed me, / Where in the deep in the night I hear a voice" (Ford). Simic uses the image of “bones” being “broken” and “scraped” to evoke familiar images of carnage during war. The voice in the night remembers his compatriots who did not survive this bloody time. In the interview with Ford he states that: “'It took me many years.