Pages:102 pages

Category: Poetry

Price: $5.75

Description: In Serbian with English translation. Jovanka Stojčinović Nikolić, a poetess, prose writer, essayist, and cultural booster, was born in the village of Ritešić near Doboj (Bosnia & Herzegovina). Up to 1998. she worked as a secondary school teacher in Doboj. From 1998 to 2010. she was General Manager of the Culture and Training Centre in Doboj. After that, as a member of Mayor’s staff, she was Adviser for culture, sciences and education. So far she has published 15 books of poetry. In 2018. she published a book of accounts, essays and reviews under the title Parallel Roads. She has received many awards, among which the most important are: Award of Association of Writers of the Republic of Srpska (for the best book in 2009), Award of Association of Writers of Romanija-Sarajevo-Drina Chapter (for the unpublished manuscript in 2002), Koči’s Pen,
Šušnjar, Metaphors of Šumadija, The Key of Dobor-City, Milan Lalić, The Goblet of the Girl of Kosovo, Annual Award of Association of Writers of the Republic of Srpska for the year 2014., Hadji Dragan, Golden Orphey by Number Seven Association of Writers in Frankfurt, international literary award Golden Ring (Skopje), Award of Association of Writers of Bulgaria. She has also won other highest recognitions – Golden Badge of Cultural and Educational Commnity ofSerbia, Recognition of Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Srpska for the contribution to the development of culture, Emblem of the City of Doboj for the contribution to the cultural creativity, Charter of Association of Townsfolk of Doboj for the contribution to the development of culture. Her poetry has been translated into many languages (Russian, Italian, German, Roumanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, English, Armenian, Slovene, Ukrainian, Polish, Arabic). She is the founder of the theatre festival in Doboj (Theatre Fest) and has been its selector for more than a decade. She is the founder of the Fortress Visual Arts Workshop in Doboj and has been its selector for many years. She is the founder and coordinator of Landlady Art Colony Okolišta-Ozren.

Mountains in my body

All night long I have been flattening mountains

In my body

Behind a mountain top (which I cannot reach)
The Sun is falling down a cliff

Levelling its rays against jagged stones
Simply
As if covering by running its shine in a flash

We are two wholes separate from the outside
Each one in its own body
With a thousand windows through which various places
Can be seen

The brighter ones are similar to me
The darker ones are as deep as gorges
And I have difficulty to see the living people in them

While I am flattening mountains
The darkness between the lights is swaying my skin
And I feel as if it had always been
An unforgettable encounter with the world
And my only possibility
To reach the Sun on the cliff