Do Not Awaken Them with Hammers (Eastern European Poets) [Paperback]

Lidija Dimkovska (Author)

Book Description

Series: Eastern European Poets | Publication Date: January 1, 2006

Poetry. Translation. The first English-language edition of the sensational young Macedonian poet Lidija Dimkovska. Translated into English by Ljubica Arsovska and Peggy Reid and published in a facing-page, bilingual edition as part of UDP's Eastern European Poets Series. "The rock of translation is broken into stones, lined up and moved around to form a solid multitextured dwelling that Lidija Dimkovska then smashes apart with the authority of pure existentialist 21st century hard-earned riotous despair. Long live the stone-throwers! They make poetry much greater than the sum of its parts"--Fanny Howe.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Sad, silly and fantastical: in her first poetry collection translated into English (after three previous collections, plus a novel, in her native Macedonian) Dimkovska pins readers to the wall with rapid-fire linguistic energy and the propulsion of her chosen form, the jagged, long-lined column. In this forceful translation, Dimkovska takes on love (there is a cryptic "A." who is often addressed), marriage, fertility, beauty ("[he] refreshes himself with L'Oreal / (because he's worth it) to exhaustion"), religion ("God is a polyglot. God nibbles at himself thus penetrating into / the word God"), Aristotle and, of course, poetry itself. The political realities of being a contemporary woman in Eastern Europe haunt the whole collection, as in "Decent Girl": "I'll wear embroidered blouses from the Ethnographic Museum / of Macedonia, and someone will have to pay for them." Although Dimkovska's distinctive zip does, at times, get lost in the prose-like quality of some of her lines, this collection is mostly exhilarating. "I will confess," Dimkovska writes, "that art is not—but should be— / a delight." As deep and complex as they are hilarious, these poems are powerfully delightful. (June)
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About the Author

Lidija Dimkovska was born in 1971 in Skopje, Macedonia. She attained a doctoral degree in Romanian Literature in Bucharest. Her prizewinning debut Progenies of the East was published in 1992, and she has since written three more books of poetry (Fire of Letters, Bitten Nails, and Nobel vs. Nobel). In 2004 she published her novel, Hidden Camera. She lives and works in Ljubljana.

Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Ugly Duckling Presse; 1st Ed. edition (January 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933254149
• ISBN-13: 978-1933254142
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,732,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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