{"id":12,"date":"2008-07-21T09:32:02","date_gmt":"2008-07-21T13:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/?p=12"},"modified":"2026-10-13T11:55:54","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:55:54","slug":"prodigy-charles-simic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"Prodigy &#8211; Charles Simic"},"content":{"rendered":"<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-12-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/audio\/prodigy.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/audio\/prodigy.mp3\">https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/audio\/prodigy.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">read by Charles Simic.  audio from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/\" target=\"blank\">poetryfoundation.org<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I grew up bent over<br \/>\na chessboard.<\/p>\n<p>I loved the word endgame.<\/p>\n<p>All my cousins looked worried.<\/p>\n<p>It was a small house<br \/>\nnear a Roman graveyard.<br \/>\nPlanes and tanks<br \/>\nshook its windowpanes.<\/p>\n<p>A retired professor of astronomy<br \/>\ntaught me how to play.<\/p>\n<p>That must have been in 1944.<\/p>\n<p>In the set we were using,<br \/>\nthe paint had almost chipped off<br \/>\nthe black pieces.<\/p>\n<p>The white King was missing<br \/>\nand had to be substituted for.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m told but do not believe<br \/>\nthat that summer I witnessed<br \/>\nmen hung from telephone poles.<\/p>\n<p>I remember my mother<br \/>\nblindfolding me a lot.<br \/>\nShe had a way of tucking my head<br \/>\nsuddenly under her overcoat.<\/p>\n<p>In chess, too, the professor told me,<br \/>\nthe masters play blindfolded,<br \/>\nthe great ones on several boards<br \/>\nat the same time.<\/p>\n<p>(1999)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>read by Charles Simic. audio from poetryfoundation.org I grew up bent over a chessboard. I loved the word endgame. All my cousins looked worried. It was a small house near a Roman graveyard. Planes and tanks shook its windowpanes. A retired professor of astronomy taught me how to play. That must have been in 1944. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio","category-chessboard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}