Spirit

THREE POEMS BY ENES HALILOVIĆ

Art by Tony Brinkley

Translator’s Note

Enes Halilović (b. 1977) is a poet, novelist and playwright whose works have been included in numerous anthologies of poetry both in Serbia and abroad. He has received many awards for his literary and editorial work. 

Halilović is an introspective author who questions his call to write poetry in the society that is blind to the wonders of life the poet is amazed by. His modest nature and the need to question the quality of his poetic expression reflects in the poem “A Woman and Me,” in which he portrays the woman on the bus who is enjoying his book unaware of the fact that the author is sitting next to her. The climax in this poem is the feeling of safety and comfort the poet experiences seeing the reader immersed in his verses. The reader often comes across the motif of life cycles in his poetry (“Shore”) along with exquisite descriptions of nature, which I tried to mirror with sometimes unusual choice of adjectives. 

The greatest challenge in translating his poems was to adhere to his minimalistic expression pregnant with ideas. The poet successfully uses very few words to express complex views on life, death, and writing. Translating his work, I had to restrain myself from “explaining” what he was trying to say and expand my search for single words and expressions in English that would convey the meaning in an appropriate way. This strategy also helped me preserve the rhythm the poet envisaged. This translation follows Halilović’s orthographic inconsistency in order to preserve the sense of freedom and ease of the poet’s language usage. In the poem “Speedy Years,” the poet uses very simple language in order to achieve the impression of the approaching danger. In this one, I followed his syntax and avoided using complex grammar structures to preserve his “staccato” mode. 

    

In his poetry Halilović relies on the tradition of folk tales and the stories he was listening to from older family members as a young man, which is why my strategy was to occasionally use language and syntax that would resemble the tradition of storytelling. This way the reader gets the impression of reading a story rather than the poem—which was the poet’s intention. 

All of his poems have very compelling ending lines which I paid most attention to when translating. I was searching for simple, yet effective words and ways to finish the translation. The final lines usually bring sudden, unexpected revelation or conclusion and are the ones that the reader will likely remember long after they have read the poem.

Katarina Ristanović Acović

Three poems

Translated from Serbian by Katarina Ristanović Acović

SPEEDY YEARS 

autumn. 

and numerous medications for bloating. 

on the streets people armed with semi truths. 

the winters and wars are coming, 

and only two trades remain:  

historians and gravediggers. 

SHORE 

Zef, Catholic, Albanian. old man with a youthful smile. 

with a hoarse and quiet voice like any other 

farmer would have. if you travel from Bar to Ulcinj, 

on the right, close to the sea is where his garden lies. 

around ten acres. he cleared out the maquis 

removed the snakes' nests, dusted swarms of mosquitos. 

now, this landscape gazes into the sea: the trees  

neatly planted and carefully tended 

as if sprouting between two eyes. below them 

a rock licked by the sea. I gaze into the garden, again and again- 

refreshed by the times departed. 

I listen to the waves and tire myself with the years to come. 

there, above the house, peaches of noble sap grow 

and tangerines that diseases shy away from. 

along the fence black and white grapes, 

vines tangled like braids. 

below the house, oranges offering their thin-skinned fruit, 

without a single pit, and kiwi, stretching towards the terrace, 

with its fruit swinging 

in the sea breeze. 

there are the lemon trees, their fruits 

shining with pride like stars. and wise figs 

converting the light into cure. and four olive trees, 

on the cliff, flickering and whispering. by the garden 

lies the path

I often took. come in, have a pick, 

he would say, and I declined, hesitant. 

and then he would pick the fruit he offered. 

Zef, an old man with a youthful smile. 

dug, watered and sailed away. to the other shore. 

 

A WOMAN AND ME 

on the bus: 

a woman next to me, reading my book, 

reading my words. 

and myself, silent, curious: 

a strange woman with my book 

and me, stranger to her- 

feeling shame,like a fetus would 

if it was watching its parents at the moment of conception. 

 

it went on, that woman's reading 

hopping from verse to verse, from page to page. 

and then, she pressed my book to her bosom 

and travelled in her thoughts. 

 

and I was safe, like a young kangaroo 

in its mother's pouch.  

Three poems

By Enes Halilović

BRZE GODINE 

jesen. 

i mnogi lekovi protiv nadustosti. 

na ulici narod naoružan poluistinama. 

dolaze zime i ratovi. 

ostala su još samo 

dva zanimanja: istoričari i grobari.  

OBALA 

Zef, katolik, Albanac. starac mladog osmijeha. 

glas mu bijaše hrapav i tih kao i svakome 

koji zemlju obrađuje. ako ideš iz Bara prema Ulcinju, 

sa desne strane, blizu mora, njegova je bašta. 

na desetak ari. prokrčio trnje i makiju, uklonio 

zmijska legla, zaprašio rojeve komaraca. 

danas, to je pejzaž zagledan u more: stabla su 

pod konac zasađena i brižno okopana-kao 

da su između dva oka izrasla. a ispod- 

stijena koju more liže. iznova, gledam tu baštu- 

odmaram se vremenom što je bilo. 

slušam talase-umaram se vremenom što će biti. 

tu, iznad kuće, breskve rastu plemenitog soka 

i mandarine od kojih se bolesti skrivaju, 

i duž ograde grožđe, crno i bijelo, 

loze su jedna kroz drugu srasle kao pletenice. 

pod kućom, narandže nude plod tanke kore, 

a bez ijedne špice, i kivi-pružio se prema terasi, 

a plodovi mu stoje u zraku i njišu se 

na vjetru morskom. 

tu su i limunova stabla, na njima plodovi 

 

ponosni kao zvijezde. i mudre smokve 

što svjetlo u lijek pretvaraju. i četiri masline, 

na litici, trepere i došaptavaju se. pored 

 

bašte i puteljak 

kojim sam tako često prolazio. uđi, uberi nešto, 

govorio je, a ja sam odbijao, nećkao se. 

on bi onda nabrao voće, i pružio mi. 

Zef, starac mladog osmijeha. 

okopavao, zalivao, i otplovio. na drugu obalu. 

 

NEKA ŽENA I JA 

u autobusu: 

neka žena, pored mene, čitala moju knjigu. 

čitala moje riječi. 

a ja sam ćutao, znatiželjan: 

nepoznata žena i moja knjiga 

i ja, koji sam nepoznat toj ženi- 

bijah postiđen, kao kad bi plod 

gledao roditelje u trenu kad ga začinju. 

 

trajalo je to. žena je čitala. 

skakutala sa stiha na stih, sa lista na list. 

potom je pribila moju knjigu na grudi 

i putovala. 

 

mislila je nešto. 

 

i bio sam siguran kao mladunče kengura 

u vreći svoje majke. 

  • Enes Halilović (b. 1977), a storyteller, novelist, poet, playwright and journalist, was born in Novi Pazar, Serbia. 

    Published collections of his poetry include Srednje slovo (Middle Name, 1995), Bludni parip (Voluptuous Horse, 2000), Listovi na vodi (Leaves on Water, 2007), Pesme iz bolest i izdravlja (Poems from Sickness and Health, 2011), and Zid (Тhe Wall, 2014); short story collections: Potomci odbijenih prosaca (Descendants of the Rejected Suitors, 2004), Kapilarne pojave (Capillary Actions, 2006) and Čudna knjiga (A Strange Book, 2017); plays In vivo (Within the Living, 2004) and Kemet (Kemet, 2010); novels  Ep o vodi (The Epic of Water, 2012) and Ako dugo gledas u ponor (If You Gaze Long into an Abyss, 2016).  

    He has collected 172 riddles published with Elma Halilović in Zagonetke (Riddles, 2015).  Halilović’s works have been included in numerous anthologies of poetry and prose both in the country and abroad.  

  • Katarina Ristanović Acović (b. 1976), graduated from the Faculty of Philology (department for English language and literature) in Belgrade,Serbia. She has been teaching English as a foreign language for over two decades. Her interest in literary translation from English to Serbian started in 2017 with publishing of “The Purple of the Balkan Kings” (a collection of short stories by H. H. Munro). Since then, literary magazines have included her works, such as “Stratford on Avon”, Washington Irving, “The Way We Live Now”, Susan Sontag and others. In 2021, her translation of “Pictures from the Balkans”, travel narration of the 20th century British diplomat, John Foster Fraser, was published. Her interest in translating modern Serbian poets into English is of a recent date.