Hotel insomnia / Charles Simic.

``Memory makes you hungry,'' writes Simic, whose poems are like folk tales told by a child with an impishly surrealistic streak. Memories of shadowy streets and rooms are haunted by an insomnia that suggests an enchanted dreamtime of watchfulness and revelation, where ``everything is a magic ritual,/ a secret cinema.'' One of the most original poets writing today, Simic has a gift for startling juxtapositions: ``Sleeplessness, you're like a pawnshop/Open late/ On a street of failing businesses.'' Homely images, in Simic's hands, take on an eerie combination of the marvelous and the absurd, ``Father studied theology through the mail/ and this was exam time./Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book/full of pictures. Night fell./ My hands grew cold touching the faces/ of dead kings and queens.'' There are few poets writing today whose sense of wonder is so palpable: ``happiness, you are the bright red lining/of the dark winter coat/ grief wears inside out.''

Winner, Pulitzer Prize 1989