The life of images : selected prose / Charles Simic.

Includes bibliographical references.

From Wonderful words, silent truth. Why I like certain poems more than others -- Reading philosophy at night -- Chinese boxes and puppet theaters -- Notes on poetry and philosophy -- From The unemployed fortune-teller. The flute player in the pit -- Food and happiness -- The little Venus of the Eskimos -- Fried sausage -- Elegy in a spider's web -- Shop, Le Bacares -- No cure for the blues -- From The orphan factory. Charles the obscure -- In praise of invective -- Orphan factory -- The trouble with poetry -- Cut the comedy -- The poetry of village idiots -- Fearful paradise -- Night sky -- From The metaphysician in the dark. In praise of folly -- The devil is a poet -- The power of ambiguity -- Buster Keaton -- Poetry and history -- The romance of sausages -- Poetry: the art of memory -- Stargazing in the cinema: on Joseph Cornell -- Literature and the Gods: Roberto Calasso -- From Memory piano. Saul Steinberg -- The singing Simics -- Tsvetaeva: the tragic life -- Adam's umbrella -- From The renegade. The renegade -- Reading about utopia in New York City -- Salvation through laughter -- The life of images -- The powers of invention -- Uncollected. The true adventures of Franz Kafka's cage -- My secret -- Oh, what a lovely war! -- Insomnia's philosopher.