Happy Birthday, Charles!

Today is the birthday of America's poet laureate, Charles Simic. Born in Belgrade in 1938, he was a child of war. His family ended up in Paris in 1953, where he and his mother waited while his father moved on the New York, where they joined him after a year's time. "My travel agents were Hitler and Stalin," he has said. "Being one of the millions of displaced persons made an impression on me. In addition to my own little story of bad luck, I heard plenty of others. I'm still amazed by all the vileness and stupidity I witnessed in my life. ... If you came to New York in 1954, it was incredible. Europe was still gray; there were still ruins. New York was just dazzling."

They moved to Chicago where he learned English, and began to write poetry while still in high school. He's won the Pulitzer for his poetry, and last year was named the Laureate. Here's one of his poems (this one from 1967):

Stone

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

And here are more of Simic's poems.