This just in from Jim Finnegan, proprietor of the ursprache blog: “Charles Simic was born in 1938 in Belgrade, Serbia (Yugoslavia at the time). His family came to the U.S. in 1954 and settled in Chicago. He has published numerous books of poetry and critical prose, and has won major awards for his poetry, a Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur Foundation ‘genius grant’, and the Wallace Stevens Award, among others. He has keen eye for the unusual poetic image and the expressiveness of everyday circumstances. Inflected by philosophical notions and the darker aspects 20th-century history, his poetry has an easy way of blending the profound and comic. In 2008 he published a collection of his aphorisms, The Monster Loves His Labyrinth (Ausable Press, 2008).” A selection of aphorisms from The Monster Loves His Labyrinth:

The new American Dream is to get very rich and still be regarded as a victim.

The infinite riches of an empty room. Silence makes visible what now appears to be the most interesting grain of dust in the whole world.

Being is not an idea in philosophy, but a wordless experience we have from time to time.

Consciousness: this dying match that sees and knows the name of what it throws its brief light upon.

We live in the nameless present convinced if we give things names we will know where we are.

Everything, of course, is a mirror if you look at it long enough.

Check out ursprache for more of Jim Finnegan’s musings…