Charles Simic, who spoke no English until his late teens, will be the second New Hampshire poet in a row to serve as U.S. poet laureate. Yesterday, the Library of Congress announced Simic's appointment to succeed Donald Hall.

The two poets live 56 miles apart: Simic in Strafford, Hall in Wilmot.

Simic, 69, taught creative writing and literature at the University of New Hampshire from 1973 until his retirement last year. He won a MacArthur genius grant in 1984 and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1990.

Simic called the latest honor overwhelming and said he had not yet decided what he would do as poet laureate. The duties of the one-year appointment, which is sometimes extended to two years, are vague and minimal. Simic will officially take the job with a reading at the Library of Congress on Oct. 17.

Simic also learned yesterday that he is the 2007 recipient of the Wallace Stevens Award, which the Academy of American Poets bestows annually "to recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry." The award carries a prize of $100,000.

"As my daughter said to me, 'Dad, you're on a roll,' " Simic said.

Simic will become the 15th poet to bear the title U.S. poet laureate. Before 1986, the position was called "consultant in

poetry." Maxine Kumin of Warner held the office in 1981-82. Other past laureates include Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Penn Warren, Joseph Brodsky and Billy Collins.

"Imagine them picking Charlie Simic," Kumin said. "There must be something in the water in New Hampshire for them to choose two such stellar poets in a row. Charlie's work is refreshingly different from Don's. He can be quite satirical."

Hall lauded Simic's selection, calling him an enigmatic and often amusing poet who "doesn't belong to any recognizable American tendency or group of poets. He is a poet of great individuality."

Wesley McNair, a Maine poet and longtime friend of Simic, described him as "a miniaturist." Simic's poems are "small and powerful and have as their precedents the things we remember from our earliest days - nursery rhymes, riddles and proverbs."

The poems often have a touch of the surreal, but they are "not puffed up and literary," McNair said. "He finds resonance in humble, ordinary things and makes them seem familiar and at the same time strange."

Early in life, Simic wanted to be a painter, and he has long loved jazz. Both arts have influenced his poetry. But perhaps the greatest influence has been the ironic view of life that grew out of his youthful experience, especially his childhood in Belgrade during World War II.

"The dark joke of his poetry is about war and destruction," said McNair. "He has not bought into the American mythology of transformation and happy endings. . . . He's most comfortable as a poet asking questions and pointing out things on the periphery of our affirmative and optimistic American vision."

Yesterday, Simic spoke of his boyhood experience in relation to his appointment as poet laureate.

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