A Wake for the Living: Poems (Bilingual Edition) [Paperback]

Radmila Lazic (Author), Charles Simic (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2003

Pulitzer Prize-winner Charles Simic introduces and translates the poems of Serbian feminist, activist, and writer Radmila Lazic

Dead-born will be your wishes.
Your every hope will be a widow.
And as for love, there won't be enough
To spread on a slice of bread.
--from "Twilight Metaphysics"

Translated and introduced with the surrealist wit that is Charles Simic's signature, A Wake for the Living offers American readers, for the first time in English, the brilliance of Serbian poet Radmila Lazic. Through her compelling and strange leaps and dodges, Lazic describes an identity-personal and political-informed by catastrophe and victimization that restlessly and imaginatively swerves into irreverence and often-comic absurdity. "Goodness is boring," she writes, "It seems it's hell I'm getting myself ready for." These poems careen from the poet's lament for beauty faded to her "Dorothy Parker Blues" to her searching for names among obituaries to her sexual desires without obligation, with the virtuosity that has made her one of Eastern Europe's best and most vivacious contemporary poets.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This collection of the startling, bold, assertively sexual work of one of Serbia's most prominent poets voices a theme rarely explored in literature, the desires of women in mid-life. Lazic typically relies on imagery from nature to express her explosive passion: "Every flattened rose / Is dearer to me than the erection of buds / Or the whoring bee and flower," she says in "Autumn Ode." But there is nothing romantic or bucolic about her; her language is contemporary, casual, occasionally coarse, as when she calls a younger rival "that ass-wiggling bitch." She isn't interested in marriage, only sex: "I won't share my solitude with anyone. / I came to know the bliss of departure," she says in one poem, then lists her life's pleasures: "A few lines about poetry, / My head next to someone's navel. Yes!" Lazic's stunningly unsentimental poetry will probably be unsettling to some, a welcome breath of truth to others. Patricia Monaghan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"A work of remarkable strength and confidence." -- —Third Coast

"Lazic has a jaunty wit, a restless and irreverent intelligence and a startling way of stalking the truth." -- —The Washington Post Book World

"Lazic often adds unexpected perspectives to her funny, ribald lyricism...A vigorous antidote to prudery and moral correctness." -- —Antioch Review

"There isn’t a dull poem amongst those collected here and several which deserve to endure." -- —The Penniless Press

"[Simic] has found within these poems...dark wit and deceptive simplicity that are the hallmarks of his own style." -- —American Poet

A vigorous antidote to prudery and moral correctness...A Wake for the Living simultaneously explores existential loneliness and hopelessness. -- Antioch Review, Summer 2004

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press; Bilingual edition (November 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555973906
• ISBN-13: 978-1555973902
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #969,209 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #50 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Slavic

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kindred Poets, November 30, 2003

By 

Jade Walker "jade walker" (Hinsdale, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Wake for the Living: Poems (Bilingual Edition) (Paperback)

I never expected to find a kindred spirit in Eastern Europe.

Radmila Lazic is a contemporary Serbian poet and the author of six poetry collections. She's edited two anthologies -- one of women's poetry, the other of anti-war letters -- and founded the journal, Profemina.

Until Nov. 23, 2003, I'd never heard of her.

Each year on my birthday, I go out to dinner, see a movie and buy a book of poetry. Finding the book is always my favorite activity. I enter the bookstore and amble over to the poetry shelves. After perusing through my favorites (Rilke, Poe, Gallagher, Frost, Keats, Shelley, Dickinson), I close my eyes and find a spot that feels right. Then I search the spines for a title that interests me. When I find one, I pull it out and flip through its pages, reading snippets of verse and rhyme to see if the words connect with me. The hunt continues until I find a dark jewel.

"A Wake for the Living," Lazic's first book of poetry translated from Serbian to English, was the third title I selected from the shelves this year. Within moments, I knew I needed to own this book.

Her writing was blunt, honest and pure. It was clear she understood my thoughts from thousands of miles away.