Oranges and Snow: Selected Poems of Milan Djordjevic(Facing Pages)

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic has done more than anyone since Czeslaw Milosz to introduce English-language readers to the greatest modern Slavic poets. In Oranges and Snow, Simic continues this work with his translations of one of today's finest Serbian poets, Milan Djordjevic. An encounter between two poets and two languages, this bilingual edition--the first selection of Djordjevic's work to appear in English--features Simic's translations and the Serbian originals on facing pages. Simic, a native Serbian speaker, has selected some forty-five of Djordjevic's best poems and provides an introduction in which he discusses the poet's work, as well as the challenges of translation. Djordjevic, who was born in Belgrade in 1954, is a poet who gives equal weight to imagination and reality. This book ranges across his entire career to date. His earliest poems can deal with something as commonplace as a bulb of garlic, a potato, or an overcoat fallen on the floor. Later poems, often dreamlike and surreal, recount his travels in Germany, France, and England. His recent poems are more autobiographical and realistic and reflect a personal tragedy.Confined to his house after being hit and nearly killed by a car while crossing a Belgrade street in 2007, the poet writes of his humble surroundings, the cats that come to his door, the birds he sees through his window, and the copies of one of his own books that he once burnt to keep warm. Whatever their subject, Djordjevic's poems are beautiful, original, and always lyrical.

Table of Contents:
Introduction ix Part I 2 Kaput Overcoat 3 4 Kisa bi da se ubije The Rain Wants to Kill Itself 5 6 Prah, sve je prah Dust, All Is Dust 7 8 Krompir Spud 9 10 Beli luk Garlic 11 12 Galilejeva tema Galileo's Theme 13 14 San The Dream 15 16 Veliko i malo Great and Small 17 18 Plovidba Sea Voyage 19 20 Staza A Path 21 22 Hleb Bread 23 24 Tisina i sneg Silence and Snow 25 26 Mala radost Little Joy 27 28 Akvarijum Aquarium 29 30 Varvari Barbarians 31 Part II 34 Pohvala Dzeni Dzejmson In Praise of Jenna Jameson 35 38 Ahen Aachen 39 42 Budjenje Waking 43 44 Oblaci Clouds 45 48 Odgovori Answers 49 50 Suton Dusk 51 52 Igra The Game 53 54 Ugljenisana mandarina Charred Tangerine 55 56 Stvarnost Reality 57 58 Pauci Spiders 59 60 Mravi Ants 61 62 Usvojeni The Adopted 63 64 Golubovi Two Pigeons 65 66 Anzelm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer 67 70 Vrana Crow 71 Part III 74 Melanholija i tajna ulice Melancholy and Secret of the Street 75 76 Samoca Solitude 77 78 O Sudbini Regarding Fate 79 80 Spaljivanje knjiga Book Burning 81 82 Gospodin Slucaj Mr. Accident 83 86 Dani Days 87 88 Pomorandza Orange 89 90 Pored okeana Next to the Ocean 91 92 Beli?asti oblaci White Clouds 93 94 Gundelji Flying Beetles 95 96 Dzpni sat Pocket Watch 97 98 Trave sa Tibeta i sa Himalaja Herbs from Tibet and the Himalayas 99 100 Ljubavna pesma Love Poem 101 104 Pobunjeni covek A Man in a State of Rebellion 105 108 Usahli grad Wilted City 109

About the Author :
Charles Simic (19382023) was a poet, essayist, and translator who won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Wallace Stevens Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. From 2007 to 2008 he was U.S. Poet Laureate. A native Serbian speaker, he published English translations of many poets from the former Yugoslavia.

Review :
Charles Simic, Winner of the 2011 Robert Frost Medal, Poetry Society of America Runner-Up for the 2011 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, PEN American Center "Every now and then, words, quite often in the form of poetry, have the power, the persuasion, and the all-penetrative ability to stop one in ones' tracks... Such is the possibility, the sheer scale of the penetrative persuasion amid some of these poems."--David Marx, David Marx Book Reviews "Charles Simic has been translating so many stimulating poets from the former Yugoslav republics for so long that I snatch up any new version by him as soon as it appears."--John Taylor, Antioch Review