Scribbled in the Dark

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning former poet laureate, a collection of elegiac, irreverent new poems—an American master at the height of his talent

 The latest volume of poetry from Charles Simic hums with the liveliness of the writer’s pen. Scribbled in the Dark brings the poet’s signature sardonic sense of humor, piercing social insight, and haunting lyricism to diverse and richly imagined landscapes. Peopled by policemen, presidents, kids in Halloween masks, a fortune-teller, a fly on the wall of the poet’s kitchen; set on crowded New York streets, on park benches, and under darkened skies; the pages within toy with the end of the world and its infinity. Simic continues to be an imitable voice in modern American poetry and one of its finest chroniclers of the human condition.

This collection finds the extraordinary in the everyday—

• Sardonic Wit: Where a fly on the kitchen wall has the best seat in the house and the infinite yawns out of boredom.
• Piercing Social Insight: Simic observes presidents, torturers, and the homeless with the same unflinching, compassionate eye.
• Haunting Lyricism: Explore elegiac poems that find beauty in boarded-up libraries, darkened skies, and dimly lit city streets.
• The Human Condition: A profound exploration of mortality, memory, and the small, strange moments that make up a life.