SOURCE: “An Interview with Charles Simic,” in Missouri Review, Vol. VII, No. 3, 1984, pp. 59-74.

In the following interview, Simic discusses influences on his work, his personal experiences in Eastern Europe and the United States, and the act of writing poetry.

[Santos]: Would you mind talking a little about the conditions in Yugoslavia just before you left?

[Simic]: I had what Jan Kott calls “a typical East European education.” He means, Hitler and Stalin taught us the basics. When I was three years old the Germans bombed Belgrade. The house across the street was hit and destroyed. There was plenty more of that, as everybody knows. When the war ended I came in and said: “Now there won't be any more fun!” That gives you an idea what a jerk I was. The truth is, I did enjoy myself. From the summer of 1944 to mid-1945, I ran around the...