Simic is new poet laureate

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic, who learned English as a teenage immigrant from Yugoslavia, will be the new U.S. poet laureate, the Library of Congress announced Thursday.

Simic, who lives in Strafford, will succeed another New Hampshire resident, Donald Hall of Wilmot. The poet laureate program promotes poetry across the nation.

“I’m overwhelmed,” Simic said.

Simic taught at the University of New Hampshire for 34 years before moving to emeritus status. He won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1990 for “The World Doesn’t End,” a book of prose poems. He also is an essayist, translator and editor.

Simic was born in Yugoslavia in 1938, and his childhood was disrupted by World War II. He moved to Paris with his mother when he was 15 and soon joined his father in New York. He has been a U.S. citizen for 36 years.