Joseph Brodsky : Bosnia Tune (1992)
As you pour yourself a scotch, crush a roach, or scratch your crotch, as your hand adjusts your tie, people die. In the towns with funny names, hit by bullets, caught in flames, by and […]
As you pour yourself a scotch, crush a roach, or scratch your crotch, as your hand adjusts your tie, people die. In the towns with funny names, hit by bullets, caught in flames, by and […]
Trains are the finest metaphor for present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina. Three and a half years after Dayton the imaginary state is still slumbering between the covers of the famous Accord, and life is for the most part […]
The “Hasanaginica” (Hasan Aga’s Wife) is a folk ballad written in the ten-syllable heroic epic line. It first came to the attention of West Europeans when it was published by the abbot Alberto Fortis, in […]
What gleams white in the green forest? Is it snow, or is it a swans? If it were snow it would have melted by now; And swans would have already taken to flight. No, it […]
Here lieth Gorčin the soldier In his own land On an alien Patrimony I lived But I summoned death Night and day I never hurt a fly I went off To be a soldier I’ve […]
Sometimes … I catch my inquiring look in the mirror: I see, not just another, but a completely unknown and utterly unsympathetic man who stares at me. In those lineaments I try to find something […]
At a roundtable on the topic of “Yugoslavia in World War II in 1941,” held in Belgrade on July 2nd and 3rd this year [1991], I asked for the floor after your presentation. I searched […]
FIRST Enclosed within a body encased in skin You dream of heaven’s fecund return Housed in a brain imprisoned in a heart The sun you revere from this dark cave Imprisoned in flesh locked up […]
The introductory cycle in The Stone Sleeper consists of five poems under the common title of “A Word About Man,” but since each of these poems treats the same motifs in the same way, we […]
None can say where it is found We know little but ’tis known Beyond mountain, beyond valley Beyond seven, beyond eight And still sadder and still madder Over weary, over bitter Over hawthorn, over thornbush […]
If I were to be born again and could choose, I would choose neither this language, nor this vocation Neither this sign of faith, nor this faith without hope. I would not accept murderers teaching […]
Question: How many countries are in Europe? Answer: Three Question: Which three? Answer: The European Union, EU candidate countries, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Milošević is convicted by the court, but the judge does not know […]
Make me die This moment, God. Only leave My eyes Behind. So they can watch –on Piazza Duomo– the women going by. Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović and Ann C. Bigelow – © 2007 Omer Hadžiselimović […]