DUBRAVKA VELASEVIC, Montenegro
(b. 1956)

Born in Titograd (now Podgorica), the capital of Montenegro, she began writing poetry when she was 12 and published three collections in Serbo-Croatian - in Belgrade and Zagreb - and two in English. She practised medicine in Montenegro, but in 1992, if not actually forced, she was certainly strongly induced to leave for Britain. Though having learned English at school, she wasn't fluent at first in that language, but started translating her own poems from the Serbo-Croatian and began to write poems directly into English. This selection starts with translated poems and moves to those written directly in English.

I REFUSE
(Variations on themes of Marina Tsvetaeva)

I REFUSE to lie
in an empty land -
without meaning
without weight

I DO NOT WANT
to vanish into death -
into the sterile happiness
of silent wax

I WANT TO SHARE
with my presence
the subtlety of every sense -
the timelessness of the Universe

To leave all this -
forever displaced
by the roll-call of the galaxies
and the cosmic stairs

To disappear
without any trace

I REFUSE

I PROTEST

CIRCLE

They erected that threshing floor
for eternity
And then left it empty

In its emptiness
it was life's finality

Under the open sky -
a trap
for the determined trackers -
a way out
into the tenth circle of light

THEY WOKE ME UP

They warned me
with the whispering of the picture on the wall

They called me
with the wind from the abyss
They closed the door
with my hand

They sent me to sleep
recalling the morning twilight