Zorica Bajin Djukanovic was born born in Mostar, ex Yugoslavia. Graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Belgrade University, the Department of Yugoslav Literature. She writes poetry, prose and literature for the young. She has published a total of 19 books. They include the collections of poetry BLOOD CLOT (1994) and LINING (1999), the short story collections HOTEL PHILOSOPHER (2003) and SAID KING OF SUNSHADES (2009) and the following collections of poetry for young people: WIZARD (1999), TINY BOX FOR A FIREFLY (2010), SUMMER DAY (2014), BRIEF LOVE POEMS (2017), MYSTERIOUS JORNEU (2020), PLANETARIUM (2022), SUPER 8 MM (2025) … Her work has been featured in 60 anthologies, chrestomathies, textbooks, primers, readers and required reading editions. Her poetry and prose have been translated into Russian, English, Dutch, Rumanian, Ruthenian and Macedonian. Some of her poems have been set to music.
She is the recipient of “The Golden String”, awarded at the Smederevo Poetic Autumns festival (1993), the “Dositej” award (2001 and 2015), “The Zmaj Poetic Stick”, awarded by the 54th Zmaj Children’s Games (2011), the “Gordana Brajović” award for the best book for children (2015), the “Bulka” award of the 23rd International Children’s Poets Festival (2016), the “Golden Key” award given by the Smederevo Poetic Autumns festival (2020), etc.
She is the recipient of “The Golden String” for a poet’s entire opus in the spehere of children’s poetry. She lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia, as a freelance artist.
EMPEROR
When I get born
I’ll be a writer in Japan
I’ll have my evening poetry readings
In the Junkudo Shoten bookshop
I’ll be reading slowly enunciating words clearly
The way the rhythm of what
Is written down requires
And each reading will
Be dedicated
To a selected audience member
Those lacking
Money to take a peek
In my cage
Will be able
To assuage their hunger
When I get born
I’ll be an emperor
I have already started saving
For silk to have a simple kimono made
And to free my verse
For the incredible silence
Required for tachiyomi
Wherein the one in the know
Saves his possessions
From the slippery edges
Of the petals of a she-goat’s ear
______
The Japanese custom of reading out while standing
WHEN I GROW OLD
for Jenny Joseph
When I grow old
I’ll wear low-waist designer jeans
although it won’t be easy to determine where
the waist is
I’ll read spam messages
the ones about millions left to an unknown person
renewing faith in miracles
I’ll take samples from luxury perfumeries
and apply them to my bunioned feet
When I grow old
I’ll take my memories to a recycling plant
and gently dispose of them having marked them
fragile oblivion glass
I won’t slam down the receiver on bores
who offer unnecessary stuff
When I grow old
I’ll go to meetings
with those who want to give up breathing
and negotiate on what organs they are to leave me
from among those they will no longer need
When I grow old
I’ll tell everyone
how he said to me having read my
poem – you just need to grow old now
When I grow old
I’ll yearn for memories at least as much
As I yearn for oblivion now
BETRAYAL
She bought those sandals
In Orlando Square
For next to nothing
Almost got them as a gift
Then she put them on
Without unfastening the bony clasp
And almost kissed herself
With springtime clarity
It is because they were made of cork
And the colour of dry sand
There is no other explanation
The sandals took her
Straight to him
As usual he wore
A linen suit
His arm encircling
The waist of a tall pale woman
Then the left sandal
Rolled over as if it were dead
Right in front of them
Showing off the shiny brand new sole
And continued doing so
Whenever they walked by
As if enchanted by the sight
Or as if it were cursed
Or as if it had lost its
Rather shallow mind
AM I
I am A
I am a woman
I am a foil
I am someone’s little daughter
Born to order
I am a hedgehog’s house
For opposite skin
I am a turtle
Polished by touch
On Effi Briest’s fountain
I am Fassbinder’s
Suppressed rage
I am Proust’s Céleste
I am an aboriginal boy
With golden anklets
On my feet
ON THE HEATH
for Emily Bronté
You cannot make a living from poetry
novels that’s where the money is
writing poems requires
a superhuman mental effort
life takes time
Little Brother says wisely sinking
into a green whirlpool of oblivion
And her time is
a chipped hourglass neck
Emma is that unkissed whiteness
that will written from the inside
by leafing through dreams and paper sheets
Heathcliff and Cathy
no one knows how they were woven
something that never was
but will be forever
for on the heath
there’s no justice or mercy
just three suns’ worth of glow
ENAMEL
During bouts of fever
Under my pillow I put Relaxan
His book
Hoping it might take my head
To my cloud
But from the slippery covers I slide straight
Through the whirlpool of the title
Onto a page half unstitched
From browsing
Into a poem with a tiny light
And a small mirror
Wherein I never manage
To recognise my face
And due to teeth chattering
Remove a little enamel from the front ones
So the book is increasingly more mine
And increasingly less his
For it is padded with my mother-of-pearl
And so I slide down the pages
And fall through the membranes of verses
Who else would make
Artificial cumulus clouds for me
To keep me
Above the poetry of dreams
Zorica Bajin Djukanovic
Translated from the Serbian original by Prof. Novica Petrovic
The Galway Review 