[The poems in "Charon's Cosmology" show] that it is possible to write intensely personal poetry without openly placing oneself at the center. In certain poems, though, [Mr. Simic] allows us to believe that he is writing to us directly. In "Charon's Cosmology,"… Mr. Simic does not write in a face-to-face confrontation with his subject and yet the effect is [direct and immediate]…. His poems echo and re-echo in the mind, as of memories of lives, impulses and cataclysms long since buried within us. (pp. 14, 34)

Mr. Simic achieves his successes with the use of symbolist and at times surrealist techniques, but beyond the mere triumph of method lies something far more urgent for him, as can be sensed in "The Prisoner." He is under siege of an anxiety that expresses itself in a highly tangential manner. We all walk around with hints and allusions that flash upon us to...