Adin Ljuca

Stalactite

Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović

2020.

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Stalactite collection, translated into English by Omer Hadžiselimović, with a non-standard (and above standard) artistic appearance given to it by Mario Chromý, brings poems from the period from 1995 to 2015 and provides a compression of twenty years of the poet's life into thirty-nine poems. „I don't need / more room, an entire life can / nestle in a haiku ” (There Have Been Prosperous Ones, Too).

 

The very name of the collection does not only symbolize the author's creative principle: „To attain that beauty you must be patient, like / a stalactite. To drip and wait.” (Stalactite); dripping stalactites also implies the patience necessary to endure oncology treatment and chemotherapy.

 

However, both in life and in his poems, the poet not only confronts "big topics" (war & cancer), with equal passion he describes his doubts while transferring compost, wading in spa healing waters or describing the adventure of reading: „To search for elusive verses is the same as to follow / the light of a star gone dark long ago: broken twigs, / trampled grass, a hoof print in the interplanetary dust ... ”(Reading The Third Life Through and Through).

 

Seeking answers to the same question that life asks us over and over again, and a form for its doubts, the author strives for simplicity of expression that is actually the hardest to achieve: „I should defend my trade, but how / when this what I do, except for a higher one, / has no sense at all? ”(The Whisper of Shalwars).