The writer of parables must know what he's about, even if they're Zen or surrealist parables, for the reductive logic of plot will otherwise turn into false profundity. Charles Simic has written many surrealist parables, and ["Classic Ballroom Dances"] … shows him trapped in his own style. Those who admire his work (and he has many imitators) praise its bizarre and startling freshness. But the persistence throughout several books of this mythic, folk-flavored simplicity can turn trifling and even cute. The uneven poems, of which there are a large proportion, cast a spell on the others, and Mr. Simic seems to be working out of habit to such an extent that finally the style is everything or nothing. He is not a poet who offers the promise of a new subject or a changing music….

[The images in many of his poems] are drawn neither from life nor from...