16 Facts About Charles Simic

Dusan Simic, known as Charles Simic, was a Serbian-American poet and co-poetry editor of the Paris Review.

Charles Simic was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2007.

Charles Simic immigrated to the United States with his brother and mother to join his father in 1954, when he was sixteen.

Charles Simic began to make a name for himself in the early to mid-1970s as a literary minimalist, writing terse, imagistic poems.

Charles Simic was a professor of American literature and creative writing at University of New Hampshire beginning in 1973 and lived in Strafford, New Hampshire.

Charles Simic wrote on such diverse topics as jazz, art, and philosophy.

Charles Simic was influenced by Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda, and Fats Waller.

Charles Simic was a translator, essayist, and philosopher, opining on the current state of contemporary American poetry.

Charles Simic held the position of poetry editor of The Paris Review and was later replaced by Dan Chiasson.

Charles Simic was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995, received the Academy Fellowship in 1998, and was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2000.

Charles Simic was one of the judges for the 2007 Griffin Poetry Prize and continued to contribute poetry and prose to The New York Review of Books.

Charles Simic received the US$100,000 Wallace Stevens Award in 2007 from the Academy of American Poets.

Charles Simic was selected by James Billington, Librarian of Congress, to be the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, succeeding Donald Hall.

In 2011, Charles Simic was the recipient of the Frost Medal, presented annually for "lifetime achievement in poetry".

Charles Simic married fashion designer Helene Dubin in 1964, and their union produced two children.

Charles Simic died of complications of dementia on January 9,2023, at age 84.