Translation Notes
In addition to being a poet, ognjenka lakićević (who prefers, when the informality allows, her name written without capital letters, and always writes poetry without them) is also the lead vocalist of the Belgrade-based band Autopark. To me, her poetry has an alternative rock quality. These poems are taken from her collection Vodič kroz požare (Fire Safety Instructions), which deals in large part with the pain of growing up, putting it into the context of adult relationships and travel—all with a line of fire, by turns destructive and cleansing, running solidly through it. (ognjenka’s name is derived from the Old Church Slavonic word “ogаnj,” meaning “fire.”)
A special pleasure in translating ognjenka’s poetry is teasing out the grammar: as a non-native speaker of Serbian, I occasionally experience the verses clumping together in case and cadence (word order is less strict in Serbian than in English). It is especially satisfying to tease out the knot, placing the finger on the right string, and witness the threads coming undone and orderly. At times I have drastically reworked lines and line breaks, and I treasure my luck in working with ognjenka directly, for her feedback and her responsiveness to my reworkings.
ognjenka’s confessional, conversational tone brings its own set of challenges for me as a translator: how to spin out these emotions in English, not just translating across languages, but across time, across life stages? That set of questions, however, also holds the key to translating. It is tempting to ask, what is it like to be called in for dinner in another language and in a country that no longer exists? But that question misses precisely the point—ognjenka’s poetry and experience are accessible across those gaps. Who, after all, has not been that lonely child on the sidelines?
—Rachael Daum
i can’t breathe
i can hear my pulse
echoing through the mattress
the thought that comforts me:
death has come
but death comes bit by bit
death is a memory at breakfast in a pine forest
near the beach
a wisp of your hair brushed the bottle of yogurt
it was only as you got ready to leave
i thought how at last
everything i need is here
the crumbs fell and fed the ants.
we’ll never get out of here alive
i’ve always been thinking
about how to hack the inevitability of the end
i know how
we’ll resolve our family illnesses
your absence
my presence
we aren’t to blame for our genes
or all the chronicles of family neuroses
we’re to blame if they win
i tell you in the voice
of my mother
as you look at me
with the uninterested gaze
of your father
already planning a new business trip
from the door
he’ll toss you some tenderness
and best wishes
then he’ll wash his hands
be dear to you
as you’ll be to me
just throw the fire
into your palms
wipe off your hands
i’ll try to infect you with fire
but the tumult of my yearning
will remind you of the drama with your mother
of the childhood you always ran away from
you’ll have to get moving
distance reminds you of home
and from fire
i’ll build a house
with pictures on the walls
coasters for cups
and a trombone in a case
new year’s cookies and a christmas tree
and your tracksuit on the shelf
and those little lights from ikea i turned on
shining through the tree
a soft fire in trembling leaves
to show you the way home
but it’s too warm
you’ve withdrawn
the cold reminds you of home
and maybe i know how to hack life
but
someone always leaves
before death does.
it was from fear my grandmother uttered
the sentences that made my mother
weak
the body remembers autoimmune shades:
fear is stronger
than love
i was spoken to
none too tenderly
to toughen me up
never too crudely
my skin softened
i changed utterly
into a mucosa
that’s why i don’t play nice with others
i didn’t join in
on school events
i think i would have fainted
standing in front of all those people
so eager for attention
i wanted to be invisible
i never managed to divine the rules
i depend on
each morning
a painstakingly prepared breakfast:
fresh pressed orange juice
and an extra helping of criticism
as the greatest sign of love
and a caress of my hair
i’m difficult
and inexorable toward others
at the end of the day compassion breaks me
never for myself
what do i know about love
i fell in love with you
because you knew what it was like
not wanting to go home after school
i don’t want to know only just enough
to get by
in school i dreamt how
one day i’d meet someone with a softness
in manner like yours
someone who has everything i don’t have
gather themselves into a blot
anarchy of the body gives way to
despair
forgive me, i’d tell you
but that would be a luxury
i never forgive myself
even one transgression
you should stay away from me
sometimes at night i let everything
fall asleep at the wheel in the twilight
it’s the loveliest fantasy
your facebook wall
is the saddest place on earth.
Acknowledgements
Image credits: © Autopark! It is a pleasure to credit ognjenka lakićević’s alternative rock band. We “borrowed” the image from a scene in one of their songs. Which song? Glad you asked. This one: Autookean. But wait. Get a snifter, pour, swirl it gently, hit play, go over to a window, and unfurl those melancholy thoughts.
Translator | Rachael Daum
Rachael Daum was awarded a 2021 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for her translation from Serbian of Dejan Atanacković’s Luzitanija (Lusitania). She is the translator from Croatian of Ivana Sajko’s The Story of a Man Who Collapsed Into His Notebook (Fraktura, 2023), and from Russian of Natalia Rubanova’s «Зашибись!» (Letters to Robot Werther; Carrion Bloom Books, 2021).
She holds an MA in Slavic Studies (Indiana University) and BA in Creative Writing (University of Rochester); she also received Certificates in Literary Translation from both institutions. Rachael translates from Serbian, Russian, and German, and is the Communications and Awards Director for the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). She lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
Author | ognjenka lakićević
ognjenka lakićević (b. 1975) was born in Belgrade, Serbia, where she is a celebrated poet and musician. She studied English in the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Philology. She has published five collections of poetry, and she is the lead singer of the alternative rock band Autopark. In addition to her work as a family therapist, she holds poetry workshops and is an animal rights activist.
