Walking the Black Cat

In his thirteenth collection, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic melds folklore and black magic with everyday life.

Hamlet's ghost wandering the halls of a Vegas motel, a street corner ventriloquist using passersby as dummies, and Jesus panhandling in a weed-infested Eden are just a few of the startling conceits Simic unleashes in this collection.

"Few contemporary poets have been as influential-or inimitable-as Charles Simic."--The New York Times Book Review