Customer Reviews

The Horse Has Six Legs: An Anthology of Serbian Poetry

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Simic has selected a fine array of poetry for this volume. The only problem is that the volume suffers from lack of ambition. There are simply not enough poets represented nor poems representative of Serbian writing. Otherwise, I loved this book, but I felt it needed to be more expansive.

Overall this is an excellent overview. Particularly I note the poet Ivan Lalic (and the exquisite poem "Love in July") and also the poet Novica Tadic who employs rather disturbing and disconnected imagery in his poetry. Most interesting (and well known) is the poem entitled "Jesus." Brief but thought provoking.

Deserving of praise, this volume, as stated, needs to be of greater length.

Charles Simic, ed., The Horse Has Six Legs: An Anthology of Serbian Poetry (Graywolf, 1992)

This is one of the better anthologies of verse I've come across in quite a while. Simic, a native Serbian himself, has an obvious love for his subject and, one would assume, a greater knowledge of history and cultural context than a translator going in fresh with this material. As any translator worth his salt will tell you, these qualities are the difference between a translation with falls flat and one which breathes; word choice is everything.

The "name" here (to Western audiences, anyway) is Milorad Pavic, whose novel The Dictionary of the Khazars was a literary sensation in the late eighties, translated into many languages and finding the bestseller lists of a number of western countries. But once you've been drawn by the name, linger over the rest of the work here. The whole collection shines with a sophisticated grasp of the surrealist ethic which much of modern American poetry is lacking; many of the poets here, such as Vasco Popa and Ivan Lalic, would stand at the same level of achievement as Eshleman, Willis, or Stroffolino on the short shelf of sacred books, where modern surrealism is concerned.

If there is a quibble to be had with the book, it's that it's simply too short. Simic does explain this in his foreword (he only included the translations he's most satisfied with as a poet as well as a translator). Thus, we have to be happy with what we have and hope he releases a volume 2 some time in the future. *** ½

There isn't a better collection of poetry with magical realism than this one! I marvel at Charles Simic's ability to translate such complicated and beautiful poetry. I love all of the poems in this book, especially Desanka Maksimovic's "Bloody Fable," Vasko Popa's "Proud Error," and "There Smoke, Sooty Smoke," from a collection of Women's Songs. Do you love poetry with surreal and dark messages? Then I suggest that you get this incredible book!