The Partial Explanation

“The Partial Explanation” by Charles Simic appears in the collection Selected Early Poems, published in 1999 by George Braziller Publishers. The four stanzas of the narrative poem are written in unrhymed free verse. As in much of Simic’s work, there is an element of surrealism to the scene. The scene itself is that of a person sitting in an empty diner, perhaps in late afternoon, in winter. As the title suggests, the reader cannot expect the know the whole story. The chief impression is that of the speaker’s loneliness and desire to be in the company of other people. “The Partial Explanation” falls in approximately the middle of Simic’s prolific career, and shares many of the themes and qualities of Simic’s other work, including urban isolation, the use of ordinary objects and situations to convey larger ideas, and a dreamlike mood.

Poet Biography

Charles Simic was born in 1938 in Belgrade, in what was at the time the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and is now Serbia. His childhood was dominated by the events of World War II, during which his family evacuated their home numerous times to escape bombings. After the war, his father left to work in Italy. The family tried and failed on several occasions to join him. At the age of 15, Simic and his mother and brother managed to travel to Paris and, after a year, to the United States, where they reunited with Simic’s father.