Stone, by Charles Simic

Resource for Grades 7-12

Stone, by Charles Simic

Media Type:
Video

Running Time: 1m 16s
Size: 3.7 KB


Source: Poetry Everywhere

This media asset comes from Poetry Everywhere.

Resource Produced by:

WGBH Educational Foundation

Collection Developed by:

WGBH Educational Foundation

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This video segment from Poetry Everywhere features the poet Charles Simic reading his poem "Stone." "There's a cult of experience in American poetry,” Charles Simic writes; “Our poets, when one comes right down to it, are always saying: This is what happened to me. This is what I saw and felt. Truth, they never get tired of reiterating, is not something that already exists in the world, but something that needs to be rediscovered almost daily."

For a biography of the poet Charles Simic please visit the Poetry Foundation Web site.

open Background Essay

What truth can be found in a stone? What experiences can we have with a stone, and what can those experiences teach us? “Stone” seems to challenge Yugoslavian-born poet Charles Simic’s dedication to expressing human experience and the truths of living in the every-day world. But a thoughtful reading of this poem reveals that it is much more a study of human nature than rocks.

“Go inside a stone/That would be my way.” The first lines immediately put the stone in a human context; the narrator is saying that he would like to be a stone. “I am happy to be a stone.” But why? Because the stone is private—no one can know anything about what is on the inside of a stone. It has a secret, inner life that no accident or mistreatment can ruin; not being stepped on by a cow, or thrown into a river by a child. A stone, unlike a person, is hard to damage, and even if its outside is harmed, its inside is still safe, and secret—“a riddle.” Humans, on the other hand, have outside bodies that are nothing but vulnerable, easily hurt or damaged; bodies can’t hold up to accident or mistreatment without being ruined to some extent or another. We keep our precious inner lives in a very fragile container. If our bodies are damaged—and everyone has had some sort of accident that hurt them—it’s hard for humans to remain “cool and quiet”,  preserving our inner lives.

Read a biography of the poet Charles Simic at the Poetry Foundation Web site.


open Discussion Questions

  • A poem can find something magical in an every day object. How many different ways does Simic regard the stone?
  • How does the image of the fishes coming to “knock on [the stone] and listen” support the narrator’s idea that the stone’s outside hides a fascinating inside?
  • What could the star charts make you think of?
  • A geologist who wants to study a stone will first use a hammer to expose the inside because the outside is weathered and might not show its true nature. What else reveals more from the inside?

open Transcript

For a transcript of this poem, please visit the Poetry Foundation Web site.


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