The Ofi Press Magazine

International Poetry and Literature from Mexico City

Zvonko Karanovic: 1 Poem Published

Poem by Zvonko Karanovic (Serbia)

Translation to English by Ana Božičević (Serbia)

Published in issue 33 of The Ofi Press.

 

 

I’d Love to be Gasoline, be Energy

Come and I’ll show you

the tongue of hedgehogs

more beautiful than

carnival & basketball

backyard memories

great verses of the cursed poet

don’t you see

everyone already grabbed up

their own serving of attention

minced & defeated

they smolder

under the lights

of street performance

while women still pick winners

to father their kids

I left home young

walked the streets

and thought the world

was a place

I’d just stroll through

and pick out the best for me

remember

we’ll never get anything

but the flash of unsold visions

we’ll never get anything

but the void

 

About the poet...

Zvonko Karanović (1959) is a Serbian poet and fiction writer. As writer of distinctly urban sensibilities, for many years he was an underground cult figure and a seminal influence on a whole generation of younger poets. He published eight collections of poems and three novels.

His poems were translated into dozen European languages. His work has been published in many anthologies, most significantly, in New European Poets (Graywolf Press, USA, Minnesota, 2008).

 He received international fellowships for writers in 2011. awarded by the Heinrich Boll Foundation (Cologne, Germany).

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-27-zvonko-karanovic/

 

Artwork by Nicola Spencer: http://www.alicebluedesigns.co.uk/