Untitled
In an attempt to get closer
to his relatives, my grandfather
built an expensive burial site
big enough for all of us
a big, happy family grave
that he descends into
every day
checking its height
and temperature
its suitability
for the bodies
of his dead.
Today at noon, a man from the funeral home
called me to say my grandfather decided
the grave was up to his standards.
Only now, he refuses to leave it.
Cemeteries are playgrounds for the elderly.
At this one, there isn’t a single grave holding the soul
of a young person who died by their own hand.
After all, life means an awful
lot to the youth of this city.
If anything, Uroš
you’ll be the first one
of that kind
to be buried here.
Heather Langenkamp
Too little, too late!
yelled the local madman
as he returned from the premiere
of a stale horror
franchise’s sequel.
In Babina Greda, we’ve known for years
(and learned it slowly) that there is no escape
from repetition.
In between the washing of laundry
and the laundering of shirts
we write poems
at eight in the morning.
At two in the afternoon
we refuse food
and medical care.
A knife finds its way
easily to naked flesh.
Bruising is likely.
The throat is easily sliced.
The dead swim
face down in these waters.
Mostly the bodies of children.
Sometimes women.
There is no progress.
Everything reminds us
of horrors in the elm trees,
our city like a movie
and its sequel: Vukovac I and II.
There is no way to dodge
the specters sweeping
our streets.
Soon, dawn rises.
Maybe the sun has already set.
In this dusk, we act
as ourselves
and nothing else.
Belgrade
For ten thousand dinars,
an Orthodox taxi driver
drove me around town all night.
We went from the boulevard
to a great beyond, my misery
amplifying with each tick
of his meter.
Brothers in Arms on a Restaurant Terrace
To my question about where he thinks
he’ll be in ten years, my friend,
a student in med school,
answered quickly:
In a military hospital
with poor lighting.
I’ll be amputating
your injured leg.
We’ve known each other for many years.
Too many years.
On a restaurant terrace,
we found comfort in a future
that sounded close.
from Alone in the Water
Uroš Bojanović
translated from the Serbian by Ajla Dizdarević
These poems come from Uroš Bojanović’s Alone in the Water, a collection of poetry that stunned me with its reverence for the repulsive. Bojanović’s book is decidedly direct as it affords dimension to morally ambiguous characters whose struggles are set in oppressive cityscapes and monotonous ruralities throughout the Balkans. The positionality of the Balkans, its people, and their headspace in the 21st century is something I believe an English-speaking readership should have access to, especially considering the growing importance of countries like Serbia and Bosnia on the European and global stage.
Along with how it establishes political context for an often-overlooked region of the world, I also found Bojanović’s work to be chaotically indulgent, exhibiting a level of imagination that is rarely found in contemporary American poetry. There’s a high level of risk in this work that is as courageous as it is captivating, and I sought to translate these elements of Bojanović’s work into English the best I could.
Regarding the translation process, it was a collaborative one, with Bojanović being flexible and accommodating when it came to my suggestions of both sacrificing and repurposing some elements of his poems for clarity in English. Additionally, the grammatical structures of Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS) and English are starkly different, with the former needing fewer words to depict an image that English needs a bit more space to describe. I’m incredibly grateful that Bojanović trusted me with his work.
I hope Asymptote’s readers enjoy these four poems, which are sardonically macabre, rebellious in tone, and cynically aware of how their characters have inherited a broader body of violence that they enact in their daily lives. (And how fitting to publish “Heather Langenkamp” during the month of Halloween! The piece alludes heavily to A Nightmare on Elm Street.)
Along with how it establishes political context for an often-overlooked region of the world, I also found Bojanović’s work to be chaotically indulgent, exhibiting a level of imagination that is rarely found in contemporary American poetry. There’s a high level of risk in this work that is as courageous as it is captivating, and I sought to translate these elements of Bojanović’s work into English the best I could.
Regarding the translation process, it was a collaborative one, with Bojanović being flexible and accommodating when it came to my suggestions of both sacrificing and repurposing some elements of his poems for clarity in English. Additionally, the grammatical structures of Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS) and English are starkly different, with the former needing fewer words to depict an image that English needs a bit more space to describe. I’m incredibly grateful that Bojanović trusted me with his work.
I hope Asymptote’s readers enjoy these four poems, which are sardonically macabre, rebellious in tone, and cynically aware of how their characters have inherited a broader body of violence that they enact in their daily lives. (And how fitting to publish “Heather Langenkamp” during the month of Halloween! The piece alludes heavily to A Nightmare on Elm Street.)
Uroš Bojanović was born in Teslić, Bosnia, in 1991. He has published four collections of poetry: Ja ne mogu ništa (I Can’t Do Anything, self published, 2007), Iz druge sobe (From Another Room, self published, 2011), Sam u vodi (Alone in the Water, Partizanska Knjiga, 2017), and Diskretne hronike (The Discreet Chronicles, Sandorf, 2020). His poetry has been published in literary magazines, including ARS, Kritična masa, Zarez, Tema, Polja, Strane, Poezije, and Fantom slobode. Additionally, his work was included in an anthology of Balkan poets called Soft Tissue. Bojanović lives in Belgrade, Serbia.
Ajla Dizdarević has worked as an editor and educator in the United States and Europe. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Southword, The Hopkins Review, Conduit, and others. She is the recipient of a David Hamilton Prize, a scholarship from the Department of Cultural Affairs, and a Fulbright grant. Her full-length poetry manuscript was a finalist for the 2025 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize and the 2025 Michael Waters Poetry Prize. She was a finalist for the 2023 PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship and received an honorable mention for a 2024 Academy of American Poets Prize. Two of her poems were shortlisted for the 2024 Bridport Poetry Prize. She loves hamsters and rabbits and currently has two bunnies: a lionhead and a Holland lop.
