Leaving
  
 I hid all the sorrows of the world
 In myself
  
 My cry is not enough
 To reconcile
 An unbearable burden
  
 The silence is perfect
 The lightening over the lake
 Is a butterfly’s blink
 The essence that explains
 The creation of the night and day
 In which the sky and the rain
 Are smaller than my sadness


  
 Rastanak
  
 Sve tuge Sveta sakrila sam
 U sebi
  
 Plač moj je nedovoljan
 Da pomiri
 Nepodnošljivi teret
  
 Tišina je savršena
 Grom nad jezerom
 U stvari je leptirov treptaj
 Suština koja objašnjava
 Nastajanje noći i dana
 U kojima su nebo i kiše
 Manji od moje tuge
 


  
 Like life
  
 When the darkness descends
 The stars drop into the tops
 of the leafy lindens
 Decorate the transparent air
 And the spring
  
 Look,
 The shooting stars caught on the branches
 A traveler thought
 Drunk with romantic love
  
 Street lights reflect
 In the window of a night tram
 Come and pass
 Like his life
  
  
 Kao život
  
 Kad se spusti tama
 Zvezde siđu u krošnje olistalih lipa
 Ukrase proziran vazduh
 I proleće
  
 Vidi
 Padalice se zakačile na vrhove grana
 Pomisli putnik
 Pijan od romantične ljubavi
  
 Odsjaji uličnih svetiljki
 U prozoru noćnog tramvaja
 Dolaze i prolaze
 Kao njegov život
 
  


 Solitary homes
  
 We build worlds
 Just for ourselves
  
 Solitary little men walk in them
  
 They buy flowers they carry home
 And give to themselves
 They sit by the fireplace
 Drinking coffee and having long talks
 With themselves

  
 Usamljeni domovi
  
 Gradimo svetove
 Samo za nas same
  
 U njima usamljeni čovečuljci šetaju
  
 Kupuju cveće koje nose kući
 I poklanjaju ga sebi
 Sedaju kraj kamina
 I uz kafu vode duge razgovore
 Sa sobom 

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Iskra Peneva was born in 1980, in Belgrade (Serbia), where she works. A graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Belgrade, she has published poetry in national and foreign daily and literary magazines. Her work has been translated into various languages (English, Russian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Swedish, Icelandic, Korean, Ukrainian, Polish, Slovene, Romanian, Azerbaijani, Hungarian, Italian) and has appeared in anthologies of Serbian and Macedonian literature. Iskra is the recipient of multiple awards and recognitions, and her most recent poetry collection Somewhere In-between received the international award for best poetry book in the Macedonian language at the 55th Struga Poetry Evenings (Macedonia) in 2016. In 2018 she won Croatia’s international award for the best unpublished poetry manuscript. In 2019 in Macedonia she won “Lingva” award for the translation and affirmation of Macedonian and Serbian literature, in 2020 in Italy she won the award for the best foreign author by the publishing house Volturnia edizioni and the same year an international award for poet journalist in Croatia.

Translates from Macedonian to Serbian and vice-versa.

Member of the Association of Writers of Serbia and the Journalists’ Association of Serbia.

Involved in visual art. Creates short musical/poetry movies in which she recites her verses to the accompaniment of music composed by professional musicians. These movies have been played at multi-disciplinary international festivals, literary festivals and exhibited in galleries.

Since 2010, focuses more on photography. Her photographs have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the country and abroad.

Bio-bibliography

Published poetry collections:

“Kutija sa devet strana” (Nine-Sided Box) (2002),

“Vatra i leptir” (Fire and the Butterfly) (2004),

“Putevi posle” (Roads After) (2006, co-written poetry book) and

“Negde izmedju” (Somewhere In-between) (2016).