“Prodigy” by Charles Simic is a metaphor for war and a story about Simic’s childhood. Simic’s account of his childhood as you learn more about throughout the poem you come to find he does not remember a whole lot about it and what he does is sporadic. The short choppy images he remembers about his childhood can be seen through the structure of the poem. The poem has no particular rhyme scheme or form. The different lengths of sentences and the stanzas being as short as 1 line or up to as long as 4 lines is a message to show how it is just an account of the random short pieces of memories he remembers from his childhood. Throughout his poem the structure, metaphors, and his message convey a strong image of how Simic feels about his childhood. To understand the poem you must truly understand the situation that Simic grew up in. The author Charles Simic was actually born with the name Dusan in Belgrade Yugoslavia. He then took chess lessons from a retired astronomy professor as stated in his poem. It was also stated that the Nazi regime in Yugoslavia would kill 100 civilians and hang them from telephone poles for every German soldier that was killed (Poetic Justice). This is crucial to know because he alludes to these things throughout his poem. The knowledge about him being taught chess by a retired astronomy professor may explain the title of this poem. The poem is titled “Prodigy” to allude to how Simic was a chess prodigy. We can gather this throughout the entire poem