Jasna Samic, born in Sarajevo, lives in Paris where she writes in Bosnian (serbocroate) and French. She has published novels, short stories, poetry, theater plays, essays. She is also director and writer of documentary films.
Jasna Samic, née à Sarajevo, vit à Paris où elle écrit en bosniaque (serbocroate) et en français. Elle a publié des romans, nouvelles, poésie, pièces de théâtre, essais; elle est aussi metteur en scène et l'auteur de films documentaires.
About the translator:
Jasna Djuricic was born in Sarajevo, where she finished the high school and the music school; she finished the study of medicine at the University of Sarajevo, where she was also a professor until 1992. Since the beginning of the war in Bosnia, Jasna Djuricic lives and works in Canada, and occasionally translates from Bosnian into English.
Poems in English and French
English poems – translated by the author and Jasna Djuricic
From the book
IN THE BED OF DREAMS
(cities and dreams)
HOMETOWN
It seems that everything rots
And your mind is grave
Dug by the memory
Of the city transformed
Into a cloaca where
Ducats of thieves and
Evil’s lackeys twinkle
Where martyrs swagger
About their prison of pain
Bloody souls
Gaze silently
At the evil's lackeys
And their ducats
It seems that everything rots
Except these:
Lackeys of the evil
And their ducats
(Sarajevo)
THE BRIDGE
Before being white, it was grey
Before being solid, it was like a wave
Before being a rainbow, it was an undulating path between two fortresses
And seventeen houses where lived
A bachelor and the Mostari
The Sultan offered to the city a bridge -
A rainbow -
The French said: It’s more proud than the Arc de Triomphe
The Italian: It’s more solid than the Rialto
The Turk: It’s higher than a minaret
And the Arab said: It is a white camel
The poet wrote: This is a swan with the neck bent
A seagull with outspread wings
A snowy mountain
On the river
For centuries gulls land
On the back of the camel, color of the snow,
For centuries gulls flow
From the back of the camel into Narenta
Flowing under the white camel
Quiet and voracious
Color of jade
When the barbarians attacked it
The rainbow became a broken mirror
The camel's back - a wrecked ship
The gooseneck - icy torch
The wings of seagulls - two severed hands
Between the two sides:
A wound
(Stari most, The old bridge in Mostar, is inscribed in the UNESCO list of the protected monuments)
THE NEW YORK RHAPSODY
During that autumn
New York was sprinkled
By fire
And the squirrels in Central Park
Were baptized by rust
While you were going on pilgrimage
Of the Beauty
You were discovering your past -
Your nature, you already knew it -
You crushed the nature under the feet
The joy flowed from trees
Immersed in the flame and
And spread like a rainbow over the sky
Over the branches and over the
Alleys of the Park
Like a bridge between the ocean
And time
Like the Woman in Black by
John Singer Sargent
You were centuries old
You set fire while you were walking
Sinking in dead leaves like
In soft prayer’s mat
Going through the path
When you went to pilgrimage
To bow down before the
Beauty
And to meet
The young man Bronzino
Before docking the Island of Böcklin
While Mezzetin sang
His serenade to you on a bench
Looking at the blue sky
And Louise de Broglie was
Wearing the same blue
Looking at you wherever you were
Whether you’ve been alone
Or with your friend
- Who seemed to be also
Sprinkled with fire -
Whether you were
In West Village
Or in East Village
Dining together
Under the trembling flame
Of the candle
The magic was breastfeeding you with
Its milk
Distilled from that multicoloured fall
Even today sometimes
When you are lonely
You are sucking the memory of the
New York Rhapsody
Which he dedicated to you,
With his sad eyes
You spread its music
To the secret places of the
Day
Thinking of his face,
Thin like a sabre and
You caressed his eyes
Filled with desire
With your own eyes
Under the trembling flame
Of the candle
When cutting the fog
With your feet
The picture of Pâris
Reappears in front of you
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