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Roll Call of Mirrors: Selected Poems

Ivan V. Lalić,

Charles Simic (Translator)

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Jan 13, 2011 Steve rated it really liked it

Shelves: poetry

4 stars for now, but upon rereading (which it certainly deserves), Roll Call of Mirrors could easily be bumped up to 5 stars. Lalic is yet another of the great eastern European poets that I have not heard of. I bumped across this collection at a used book store, where I saw "Charles Simic" as translator, and instantly knew this was probably some poetry I would want to read. I wasn't disappointed. Describing him in a review is a bit difficult, since his poems have such a dream like quality. I've 4 stars for now, but upon rereading (which it certainly deserves), Roll Call of Mirrors could easily be bumped up to 5 stars. Lalic is yet another of the great eastern European poets that I have not heard of. I bumped across this collection at a used book store, where I saw "Charles Simic" as translator, and instantly knew this was probably some poetry I would want to read. I wasn't disappointed. Describing him in a review is a bit difficult, since his poems have such a dream like quality. I've seen where he's been compared to Rilke, but since I've yet to read a Rilke translation that spoke to me, that is a comparison I can't comment on, though I sort of know what that means. Memory is the big thing for Lalic, and a good cinematic equivalent would be the films of Andrei Tarkovsky (in particular, The Mirror). Some of these poems were hard for me to get traction with, since the reference points seemed too alien for me, leaving me with only glimpses of beauty. However, once I started hitting Lalic's "Byzantium" poems (of which there are several), I found myself quickly becoming a fan. The second section of the collection is devoted to the "Melisa Sonnets." I have no idea who Melisa was. Maybe she was just Lalic's muse, but the mysterious and beautiful spell these poems cast had me wishing, since they seem to build upon each other, Simic had included the entire sequence. I looked online to see if I could find any, but no such luck. Here's a sample, titled "Wall."

This is the wall, Melisa, the garden is beyond the wall.
The bees that buzz in it are your body.
There's no gate. Birds sprout in the sky.
They wear their red color of death and alight on the forehead.

To peck the true dream that sleeps beyond sight.
My dream is bread, Melisa. You are the rose in that bread.
The bread is beyond the wall where the bees buzz.
I see red birds on the foreheads of passers-by,

Who know nothing while they fill their bowls
With simple grub of the living, for the appearance is stronger.
This is the wall, Melisa, untouched by the violence of a cry

Which I stabbed like a knife between two stones.
The knife has broken, the bird flies around my shoulders
And wall of your garden, Melisa, is the wall of weeping.

(translated by Charles Simic.)

Overall, I thought this was a great read, one that left me wanting to read many of these poems again. It also left me wanting to know more about Lalic, his life, and his poetry. Simic does supply a fine introduction that begins to answer some of these questions, but the quality of what follows only left me wanting more. Highly recommended. Oh, here's a link to a few Lalic poems I did find. But they are not poems that can be found in this collection.

http://www.spinybabbler.org/modern_po...
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