An alumnus of Oak Park River and Forest High School has been named poet laureate by the Library of Congress. Charles Simic was born in Yugoslavia and moved to Oak Park when he was seventeen. For Chicago Public Radio, Miriam Gottfried reports.

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Simic moved to Chicago from Oak Park after high school and studied briefly at the University of Chicago. His first poems were published in the university's Chicago Review in 1959. Simic moved to New York a short time later, but he says Chicago stayed with him.

SIMIC: Those early years in Chicago were very, very significant. It was a sort of a discovery of a certain kind of working America. I had all these jobs. I was young and making my own living. So, these are things you don't forget.

Simic says he started writing poems in high school to impress girls. He eventually became a professor at the University of New Hampshire where he has worked for 34 years. Simic will begin his duties as poet laureate in the fall, reading his work at the Library of Congress' annual literary series.

For Chicago Public Radio, I'm Miriam Gottfried.