An Interview With Charles Simic

(photo by Michael Prince)

Not too much to sink your teeth into in this interview with Charles Simic, the current poet laureate of the United States, but it's a quick, fun read.

From The New York Times:

As the poet laureate of the United States, what are you doing to increase the public’s interest in poetry at a time when cultural alarmists insist that reading is on its way out?

Poetry doesn’t need much promotion. It is doing quite well in this country. I gave a reading the other night in Concord, N.H., with two former poet laureates — Donald Hall and Maxine Kumin —and 740 people came. That’s a lot of people!

What kind of mood do you wake up in on most mornings?

Full of pep! I get up at 5. I turn on the computer, and I start reading newspapers, and within a half an hour, I’m so full of energy and anger and ready to start the day.

More here.