52 Books in 52 Weeks, it's called. The challenge is simple: read a book every week for a year.
70. The world doesn’t end.
The progression goes like this: my friend Robert Garza gave me Simic’s The Book of Gods and Devils on the bus last week, because he had an extra copy. He mentioned that Simic won the Pulitzer for this other title, The world doesn’t end, and handed it to me — Garza places them in the surrealist tradition. I read a few of these odd prose poems before I had to disembark, and the next day I checked it out of my library.
He held the Beast of the Apocalypse by its tail, the stupid kid! Oh beards on fire, our doom appeared sealed. The buildings were tottering; the computer screens were as dark as our grandmother’s cupboards. We were too frightened to plead. Another century gone to hell — and for what? Just because some people don’t know how to bring their children up!
——————
The city had fallen. We came to the window of a house drawn by a madman. The setting sun shone on a few abandoned machines of futility. “I remember,” someone said, “how in ancient times one could turn a wolf into a human and then lecture it to one’s heart’s content.”
They’re slight, and interesting as far as they go, but I wonder if they’re any good? I mean, is this a good poem? Is it good writing? I don’t always know how to answer that with these prose poems — as the book went on, I began to feel more and more like I was looking at the Emperor’s new clothes. With nonsense like these, sometimes I get the feeling that it’s about how it sounds… it has to sound right. I can imagine Simic throwing away 10, 20 failed experiments for every one he keeps.
