The poems in Struggling Times find Louis Simpson's distinct imaginative voice working at its full poetic power. Both timely and personal, the poems reveal Simpson's ongoing quarrel with suburban America, as well as the American government's struggle to retain its integrity and honor in the midst of its own aggression and worldwide strife.
You have to be careful
what you hear or see.
In Afghanistan I saw
the man and the woman
who were caught in adultery
buried up to their heads.
Their children were brought
and told to throw stones.
I can still see the heads
twisting on the ground.
The poor devil in Papillon
with his head in the guillotine . . .
but Goya's half-buried dog
looking up at the sky
I think was the worst of all.
"This is the Jamaican-born Simpson's 18th collection; its dry trimeters and tragic resignations should certainly please the faithful fans... Yet the new poems, as much as any in his oeuvre, leave room for unexpected happiness...Simpson believes in endurance and the rewards of the ordinary. He can, at his best, make his readers believe in those things too."
-Publishers Weekly
Louis Simpson was a prominent American poet, editor, translator, and literary critic during the latter half of the 20th century. Born in the West Indies, Simpson immigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen. He studied at Columbia University, then served the US Army in active duty in Europe during World War II. After the war he continued his studies at Columbia and at the University of Paris. While living in France, he published his first book of poems, The Arrivistes (Fine Editions Press, 1949). He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection At the End of the Open Road (Wesleyan University Press,1963), and his The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems 1940-2001, (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2003) was finalist for the National Book Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize. His other honors include the Prix de Rome, Guggenheim Foundation fellowships, and the Columbia Medal for Excellence. Louis Simpson passed away in 2012.
About the Author: Educated at Munro College (Jamaica, West Indies) and at Columbia where he received his doctorate, Louis Simpson has taught at various universities. The author of seventeen books of poetry, he has received the Rome Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Hudson Review Fellowship, Guggenheim Foundation fellowships, and the Pulitzer Prize.
