Omer Hadžiselimović & Marko Vešović

K vječnosti okrenute / Pet američkih pjesnikinja

Turned Toward Eternity / Five American Poetesses

 

​​Illustrations by Mario Chromý

2022.

​

Omer Hadžiselimovic, one of the founding members of Samizdat, left behind thousands of translations of poems by American and British poets (most in collaboration with Marko Vešovic). Among them is an extensive collection of poems by Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Denise Levertov, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath.

 

The result is this ambitious publication by Samizdat: a book of poems by these five female poets, masterfully translated. Their poetry is powerful, deeply feminine yet universal, erotic yet gentle, and at the same time femininely fierce. Their child-like fascination with the world, comingled with a simultaneous disappointment with it, is the common thread here.

 

The title of the book, Turned Toward Eternity, was adopted from the poem 712 by Emily Dickinson. To those familiar with her poetry, the title choice might not come as a surprise. To all readers though, the accompanying essay by Marko Vešović about the creative process of translating this poem will be an enlightening read.