Buried Treasure I used to think of tenderness as a kind of spindle we could both, each differently, revolve around   together. Likewise, until not so long ago, I still believed that keeping a lamp on at night could keep away   all ghosts, when really it only works for some ghosts, not the worst ones,   for whom it’s all the same – darkness, illumination… When I spoke   of vanishing, I meant without a whiff of retreat anywhere, no knocked-over winecup with its chipped ...

A character in Ferida Duraković’s poem “Cosmos blossoms, Sarajevo” gestures to a building destroyed in war and says, “Still, this city is incredible.” Three Sarajevo-based or -born artists have contributed to this package of work, exploring themes such as home, isolation, loss, love, wartime, migration, and aftermath. Ferida Duraković co-founded Bosnia and Herzegovina’s PEN chapter in 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo and served as its executive director for more than twenty years. She is a major voice in the region’s literature and has mentored and encouraged a wave of younger writers, including Selma Asotić. Literary translator Mirza Purić provided new translations of several of Ferida’s poems written before, during, and after the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Along with his translations, the feature includes the original Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) texts. Selma Asotić, a bilingual poet from Sarajevo now based in the US, released her award-winning ...

Ratni Haiku

Minobacač doručkuje
Granate šute
U preostaloj krošnji
Vrapčić cvrkuće

Tamna noći tamna li si
Nema kestena
Pod slijepim oknima
Duga je noć ...