Career
Simic began to make a name for himself in the early to mid-1970s as a literary minimalist, writing terse, imagistic poems.[4] Critics have referred to Simic's poems as "tightly constructed Chinese puzzle boxes". He himself stated: "Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat and the poet is merely the bemused spectator."[5]

He was a professor of American literature and creative writing at University of New Hampshire beginning in 1973[6][7] and lived in Strafford, New Hampshire.[8] Simic wrote on such diverse topics as jazz, art, and philosophy.[9] He was influenced by Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda, and Fats Waller.[10] He was a translator, essayist, and philosopher, opining on the current state of contemporary American poetry.He received the US$100,000 Wallace Stevens Award in 2007 from the Academy of American Poets.[12]

Simic was selected by James Billington, Librarian of Congress, to be the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, succeeding Donald Hall.