A Wedding in Hell

Of all Simic's books, this is the strongest. All his themes are here: the search for meaning, religious iconography, and his use of ironic contrasting images. This is the book that should have won the Pulitzer (nothing against his "The World Doesn't End"). Imagine a cross between Blake, Neruda, and Issa, and you'll have a good idea of the places this book will take you.

Charles Simic, A Wedding in Hell (Harcourt Brance Jovanovich, 1994)Simic is as good as it gets, and in A Wedding in Hell he's in top form. Simultaneously irreverent and spiritual, the bulk of the poems in this book center around themes of higher powers and how odd they are when looked at from our perspective. Simic's usual surreal wit is in play throughout, and almost every poem has an unexpected pleasure waiting for the reader at the end. (I'd jotted down quotes to put here, but it was raining yesterday and the paper got smudged. Since I can't read my own writing, just imagine "Prayer" is inserted here.)Lovely, on a par with Simic's beat work. Highly recommended. ****