Oberlin College Press

Vasko Popa

HOMAGE TO THE LAME WOLF (translated by Charles Simic)

Paper $14.95 (ISBN 0-932440-22-3)

Winner of the PEN Translation Prize.

Our first version of this selection from one of Eastern Europe's major figures sold out. The new version adds two sequences--"Give Me Back My Rags" and "Heaven's Ring"--as well as some previously unpublished sections of the justly famous series, "The Little Box." Simic and Popa are a perfect match. A book for surrealists, mythographers, postmodernists, scientists, and lovers of poetry and games.

Charles Simic is also the translator of Novica Tadic's Night Mail: Selected Poems.

IN THE VILLAGE OF MY ANCESTORS

Someone embraces me
Someone looks at me with the eyes of a wolf
Someone takes off his hat
So I can see him better

Everyone asks me
Do you know how I'm related to you

Unknown old men and women
Appropriate the names
Of young men and women from my memory

I ask one of them
Tell me for God's sake
Is George the Wolf still living

That's me he answers
With a voice from the next world

I touch his cheek with my hand
And beg him with my eyes
To tell me if I'm living too

--Vasko Popa
translated by Charles Simic