The Artist's Creed “I Believe in God”
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Apr 3, 2019 Donovan McAbee, associate professor of religion, poet, and Charles Simic scholar, brings literary and theological perspective. He explores Simic’s refugee-shaped imagery and the foreign feel of his English. Short readings and reflections probe poetic difficulty, apophatic longing, Christ imagery, and how grief and distance shape art.
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Simic's War Childhood Fueled His Poetic Vision
- Charles Simic's childhood wartime dislocation shaped poems that witness horror, chance, and the impossible becoming possible.
- Donovan McAbee notes Simic experienced WWII, civil war, and Stalinist takeover as a child in Belgrade, producing that haunted sensibility.
Fourth Language Shaped Simic's Image Driven Poems
- Writing poetry in a fourth language pushed Simic toward visually driven, image-first strategies that sometimes read as 'images strung together.'
- McAbee links Simic's multilingual formation to distinctive phrasing and foreign-feeling diction.
Begin By Asking How A Poem Makes You Feel
- Start reading poetry by asking how the poem makes you feel rather than decoding it like a puzzle.
- Donovan McAbee recommends treating poems as conversation partners, invitations, or prayers to engage with a human voice.