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Volume 33.1
Winter Spring
2002

book review

Commited To the Road (Predan Puti)
by Marinko Kovacevic
translated by Visnja McMaster

 

reviewed by Robert Spiess

Commited To the Road (Predan Puti) by Marinko Kovacevic, translated by Visnja McMaster; from the author: Severin na Kupi 10, 51329 Severin na Kupi, Croatia; 2000, 130 pp., paper, write for price and acceptable method(s) of payment

This is the first book published by The Association of Croatian Haiku Poets in their new series of volumes of haiku.

Each page of this well manufactured book has a haiku in Croatian, followed by the English translation. A sampling of the contents:

The village church.
A single candle lights up
the brows of saints.

 •

On the islet,
the old bell-ringer rings
to himself . . .

Father presses olives.
We dip our bread
in the first oil.

Of the five titled sections, the last one, A Miner’s Lamp, has many insightful and empathetic poems. A sampling:

Approaching the pit,
the miner’s serious face becomes
more serious still.

 •

The miner sits—
wrapped up in his
exhaustion.


A miner’s graveyard.
One more grave with a plaque—
EXHUMATION FORBIDDEN.

 •

A small happiness:
down this gallery flows
richer air.

 

 

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