This issue features a “micro-interview” with Charles Simic, conducted by Joel Rice. Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Charles Simic survived starvation and imprisonment throughout World War II. At age sixteen, he immigrated to Oak Park, Illinois, where he wrote his first poems in order to “get girls.” Over the ensuing decades, he collected nearly every award available to the contemporary poet, including the Pulitzer Prize, and was named US poet laureate in 2007, an honor he reflects upon in this interview. Not conveyed here is how pleasantly Mr. Simic’s charismatic voice abrades the ear with its odd intonations and cryptic laughter, or how much he enjoys tripe.

MICROINTERVIEW WITH CHARLES SIMIC, PART I.