title: The Renegade: Writings on Poetry and a Few Other Things
author:  Charles Simic 
description: U.S. poet laureate Simic casts his knowing eye over a range of subjects in 16 biographical/critical pieces, many originally published in the <i>New York Review of Books</i> and other journals. In the opening, autobiographical piece, Simic, born in 1938, recalls his Belgrade, Yugoslavia, childhood unsentimentally (I had a happy childhood despite droning planes, deafening explosions, and people hung from lampposts. I mean, it's not like I knew better....), and continues with his arrival in America as a teenager and how his growing distaste for Serbian nationalism turned him into a renegade. Simic then roves outward to figures such as the misunderstood and underappreciated E.A. Robinson; melancholy Robert Creeley of <i>Black Mountain Review</i> fame; surrealist-inspired Yves Bonnefoy; and fellow U.S. poet laureate Donald Hall. He examines the endless quirks of Witold Gombrowicz, the eclectic originality of W.G. Sebald and certainly one of the greatest artistic renegades anywhere, Christopher Marlowe. Also among these elegant, penetrating writings are essays on a MoMA exhibit of Dada and on Whitman, not to mention a memorable segue on the world's worst haircut. <i>(Apr.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  **THE UNRAVELING STRANGENESS**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **BOOKS BY BRUCE WEIGL**
  
  
  POETRY
  
  
  _Executioner_
  
  
  _A Sack Full of Old Quarrels_
  
  
  _A Romance_
  
  
  _The Monkey Wars_
  
  
  _Song of Napalm_
  
  
  _What Saves Us_
  
  
  _Sweet Lorain_
  
  
  _Archaeology of the Circle_
  
  
  _After the Others_
  
  
  PROSE
  
  
  _The Circle of Hanh: A Memoir_
  
  
  CRITICISM
  
  
  _The Giver of Morning: On Dave Smith_
  
  
  _The Imagination As Glory: On the Poetry of James Dickey_ (edited with T. R.
  Hummer)
  
  
  _Charles Simic: Essays on the Poetry_
  
  
  ANTHOLOGY
  
  
  _Between the Lines: Writing on War and Its Social Consequences_ (edited with
  Kevin Bowen)
  
  
  TRANSLATIONS
  
  
  _Poems from Captured Documents_ (cotranslated from the Vietnamese with Nguyen
  Thanh)
  
  
  _Mountain River: Poetry from the Vietnam Wars_ (cotranslated and coedited with
  Kevin Bowen and Nguyen Ba Chung)
  
  
  _Angel Riding a Beast: Poems for America,_ by Liliana Ursu (cotranslated from
  the Romanian with the author)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # **THE UNRAVELING STRANGENESS**
  
  
  POEMS