Every Child Is Beautiful When Born: Selected Poems

By Esad Babačić

In this, Esad Babačić’s first book of poetry to appear in English, we have a very different and surprising voice emerging from Slovenia. The closest parallel is the poetry, as much as the attitude, of Charles Bukowski. It’s the voice of the streets and it’s a demotic voice, purged of the sense of the “beautiful.” It could be described as jagged and rough, but done purposely to release poetry from well-worn traditional forms and style. his is a masterful voice, and one that should be heard and recognized outside of Slovenia, and here translated ingeniously by Andrej Pleterski.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781628974355

Esad Babačić

Esad Babačić was born in 1965 in Ljubljana to a working-class migrant family. After completing his military service in Titograd, Babačić returned to Ljubljana and started studying Slovene language and literature, as well as Southern Slavic languages, at the Faculty of Arts. His poetry has been translated into many languages and has received several awards, notably the Velenjica-čaša nesmrtnosti (2014) award for 10 years of outstanding poetic work in the 21st Century.

Book preview

Every Child Is Beautiful When BornHalfPageTitlePageCopyrightPageSpace

Every Child Is Beautiful When Born

Selected Poems

Esad Babačić

Table of Contents

WHAT A POEM NEEDS

A NATIVE AMERICAN POEM

EVERY CHILD IS BEAUTIFUL WHEN BORN

THE RETREAT

THE DANUBE

THE OUTER STARS

TO THE SOLDIER OF SILENCE

THE WIND

THE DAY

ARARAT

B. B.

THE MELANCHOLY

THE PRESSURE

A PROPER POEM

A NAIVE POEM

TRIESTE

JLA

WHAT ELSE?

RAIN

A REVOLUTION

DEMOCRACY

THE PARTISAN POEM

A MACEDONIAN POEM

A GREEN LAND

A GLASS LAND

ĐIĐIKOVAC

ARRIVALS, DEPARTURES

THE STREET

MESSI

THE DECK

THE SEEKER

HARA-KIRI

THE DIVAN

THE PRAYER OF THE BUTTERFLY

A HEART

THE SAMURAI

WATER

THE PATIENCE

HEART II

THE WOLF

SNOW

KNIVES

THE COURAGE

DATES

THE WILL

A POEM

AMERICA

RUSSIANS

GRAY

LORCA

JOBUS

CANADA

PALESTINE

THE PERSPECTIVE

THE BANANA

AUTUMN

THE ELEPHANT

A SEA POEM

A TRANSITIONAL POEM

AN OUNCE

THE BODY SCENT

THE PILGRIMAGE ACROSS THE COUNTRY

SHIT

THE WHITE BLOOD

THE DARK SIDE OF PURE ENERGY

WOLVES

THE RAGE

PALACH

THE PEACE

WANNSEE

SYLVIA

AN EPITAPH

A MORNING

PICASSO

JANUARY

THE APARTMENT

BRDO

PAINTERS

THE NEWSPAPER

HORSES

ROMMEL

CARRY ME, CHILDREN, ON YOUR HANDS

THE DUSK

A PRAYER

WHALES

WHAT A POEM NEEDS

Air.

Plenty of air.

And a landscape.

A human in the middle,

sitting by the fire,

warming his hands.

Whales Do Not Showboat, 2000)

Space

A NATIVE AMERICAN POEM

I’d like to live with a sky

that will devour me.

(Cut Off from the Sky, 2018)

Space

EVERY CHILD IS BEAUTIFUL WHEN BORN

At first, you want to go out to count the stars.

The shadow is slow, it doesn’t catch

your thoughts.

Once you know how to run, you never give up,

once you know how to run, you attempt suicide.

If you were still alive, you’d laugh for