What do you think?
Rate this book
Immigrant Blues
Immigrant Blues, an extension and deepening of the famous poems of the siege of Sarajevo translated in Simic's Sprinting from the Graveyard (Oxford, 1997), explores the personal and the public devastations of war, especially its effects on the emotions, thoughts and memories of exiled survivors. Simic's genius is to present this disturbing reality in terms so vigorous and humane that pain is mixed with the solace and pleasure of great art.
- GenresPoetry
87 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2003
19 people want to read
About the author
Goran Simić
21 books6 followersGoran Simić was a Serbian-Canadian poet from Bosnia and Herzegovina, recognized internationally for his works of poetry, essays, short stories, and theatre.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 17, 2025
i felt so seen while reading this poetry. truly one of the best books i’ve ever read. and the first time i’ve ever cried while reading.
here’s one of the verses that absolutely destroyed me (and in this book every single verse has left me shattered).
My Accent
I love my accent, I love that wild sea
which attacks my weak tongue.
It doesn’t reside in the morning radio news
as much as in the rustle of the job offer flyers stapled to the street poles.
In my accent you can find my past,
the different me who still talks with imagined fishes in a glass of water.
My grandfather was a fisherman
and I grew up on a dock
waiting for him to come back.
He built a gigantic aquarium when I was born and every time he brought a fish
he named it immediately by some word I had to learn until the next came... next came... next came.
I remember the first two were called “I am”
and after that the beauty of language came to me through the shining scales.
I learned watching the aquarium
and recognizing the words by the silent colours.
After returning home
my grandfather would spend whole nights making sentences by combining the fishes
who would pass each other.
It’s how I learned to speak.
I left the house the day when my grandfather went fishing for a black fish he was missing
and never came back.
Now I am sitting in the middle of my empty room
as in an aquarium
and talking with ghosts of the fishes I used to recognize by words,
talking with the shadows floating over the flyers ripped off street poles.
“I love my accent...
I love my accent...”
I repeat and repeat again
just not to ask myself:
Who am I now.
Am I real or just the black fish my grandfather failed to catch.
here’s one of the verses that absolutely destroyed me (and in this book every single verse has left me shattered).
My Accent
I love my accent, I love that wild sea
which attacks my weak tongue.
It doesn’t reside in the morning radio news
as much as in the rustle of the job offer flyers stapled to the street poles.
In my accent you can find my past,
the different me who still talks with imagined fishes in a glass of water.
My grandfather was a fisherman
and I grew up on a dock
waiting for him to come back.
He built a gigantic aquarium when I was born and every time he brought a fish
he named it immediately by some word I had to learn until the next came... next came... next came.
I remember the first two were called “I am”
and after that the beauty of language came to me through the shining scales.
I learned watching the aquarium
and recognizing the words by the silent colours.
After returning home
my grandfather would spend whole nights making sentences by combining the fishes
who would pass each other.
It’s how I learned to speak.
I left the house the day when my grandfather went fishing for a black fish he was missing
and never came back.
Now I am sitting in the middle of my empty room
as in an aquarium
and talking with ghosts of the fishes I used to recognize by words,
talking with the shadows floating over the flyers ripped off street poles.
“I love my accent...
I love my accent...”
I repeat and repeat again
just not to ask myself:
Who am I now.
Am I real or just the black fish my grandfather failed to catch.
Displaying 1 of 1 review