Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
About the author: Valentina Novković, graduated from the Department of Russian Language and Literature. He writes poetry, short stories, translates from Russian into Serbian, writes reviews.
Her poems have been translated into Russian, English, Macedonian, Romanian, Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Korean and Bangla. Winner of many awards for poetry and prose. She has published three poetry books Timeless (Draslar, 2014) Drop on Drought (Parthenon, 2018) and Puzzles of Tenderness (Liberland, 2021) as well as the book of stories Two Hours from Reality (AWS, 2020)
Editor at the Liberland publishing house, where he edits works by artists from Serbia and the surrounding area and translates works by authors from the Russian-speaking area. Journalist of the Focus News portal, where her interlocutors were many creators from Russia and the former Soviet Union. The head of the regular program of the library “Milutin Bojić”, “Conversation with a Poet”. Member of the Association of Writers of Serbia, Serbian Literary Association and associate of the Institute of Children’s Literature. Lives in Belgrade.
Swing of the rope
Life has gray eyes
that have forgotten
what happiness is
and soap bubbles
that a girl in a wheelchair
is trying to reach.
A smile is sometimes
a broken bone of illusion
and skin that is crucified
for a higher goal.
And most of all,
it is a slight swing of the rope
that keeps us upright
as we walk on the ice.
Knight of Mercy
In the glass
eye of hesitation,
dies the trail
that the knight
of mercy
to the brave unselfishly
giving away.
While God listens
There is something devastating in
the smile of a day
that carries hunger
and prayer on the same shoulder.
In it, an old woman with daisies
and a primrose prays for
a lump of survival,
folds of grace in the palm
of your hand.
The world has the claws
of the wounded
swan and the smell of joy
in the eyes of children
that no one was able to pamper.
He has us with invisible ink
we spell new ways
agreements between
willows and water lilies.
While the Lord listens.
DOVE
This is, perheps,
my mother who,
like a dove,
lands freely on
my palm.
Keeping balms
in the wounded beak
for my
heanvenly pains.
Blurred
In the blurred eye of an old woman
who sells autumn flowers
and a couple of apples,
the fingers of her deceased husband
are trembling and the crosses
of a newborn child are collapsing,
who were not even looking forward
to the ball decorations for the Christmas tree.
In that blur, known only to her,
as in an inverted reflection,
the frowning face of a lady who,
holding tight to the snakeskin bag,
complains about the expensiveness.
