What do you think?
Rate this book
Homage to the Lame Wolf: Vasko Popa - Selected Poems
Our first version of this selection from one of Eastern Europe's major figures sold out. The new version adds two sequences--"Give Me Back My Rage" and "Heaven's Ring"--as well as some previously unpublished sections of the justly famous series, "The Little Box." Simic and Popa are a perfect match. A book for surrealists, mythographers, postmodernists, scientists, and lovers of poetry and games. Winner of the PEN Translation Prize.
163 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
2 people are currently reading
137 people want to read
About the author
Vasko Popa
92 books65 followersPopa was born in the village of Grebenac, Vojvodina, Serbia. After finishing high school, he enrolled as a student of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. He continued his studies at the University of Bucharest and in Vienna. During World War II, he fought as a partisan and was imprisoned in a German concentration camp in Bečkerek (today Zrenjanin, Serbia).
After the war, in 1949, Popa graduated from the Romanic group of the Faculty of Philosophy at Belgrade University. He published his first poems in the magazines Književne novine (Literary Magazine) and the daily Borba (Struggle).
From 1954 until 1979 he was the editor of the publishing house Nolit. In 1953 he published his first major verse collection, Kora (Bark). His other important work included Nepočin-polje (No-Rest Field, 1956), Sporedno nebo (Secondary Heaven, 1968), Uspravna zemlja (Earth Erect, 1972), Vučja so (Wolf Salt, 1975), and Od zlata jabuka (Apple of Gold, 1978), an anthology of Serbian folk literature. His Collected Poems, 1943–1976, a compilation in English translation, appeared in 1978, with an introduction by the British poet Ted Hughes.
On May 29, 1972 Vasko Popa founded The Literary Municipality Vršac and originated a library of postcards, called Slobodno lišće (Free Leaves). In the same year, he was elected to become a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Vasko Popa is one of the founders of Vojvodina Academy of Sciences and Arts, established on December 14, 1979 in Novi Sad. He is the first laureate of the Branko’s award (Brankova nagrada) for poetry, established in honour of the poet Branko Radičević. In the year 1957 Popa received another award for poetry, Zmaj’s Award (Zmajeva nagrada), which honours the poet Jovan Jovanović Zmaj. In 1965 Popa received the Austrian state award for European literature. In 1976 he received the Branko Miljković poetry award, in 1978 the Yugoslav state AVNOJ Award, and in 1983 the literary award Skender Kulenović.
In 1995, the town of Vršac established a poetry award named after Vasko Popa. It is awarded annually for the best book of poetry published in Serbian language. The award ceremony is held on the day of Popa’s birthday, 29 June.
Vasko Popa died on January 5, 1991 in Belgrade and is buried in the Aisle of the Deserving Citizens in Belgrade’s New Cemetery.
After the war, in 1949, Popa graduated from the Romanic group of the Faculty of Philosophy at Belgrade University. He published his first poems in the magazines Književne novine (Literary Magazine) and the daily Borba (Struggle).
From 1954 until 1979 he was the editor of the publishing house Nolit. In 1953 he published his first major verse collection, Kora (Bark). His other important work included Nepočin-polje (No-Rest Field, 1956), Sporedno nebo (Secondary Heaven, 1968), Uspravna zemlja (Earth Erect, 1972), Vučja so (Wolf Salt, 1975), and Od zlata jabuka (Apple of Gold, 1978), an anthology of Serbian folk literature. His Collected Poems, 1943–1976, a compilation in English translation, appeared in 1978, with an introduction by the British poet Ted Hughes.
On May 29, 1972 Vasko Popa founded The Literary Municipality Vršac and originated a library of postcards, called Slobodno lišće (Free Leaves). In the same year, he was elected to become a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Vasko Popa is one of the founders of Vojvodina Academy of Sciences and Arts, established on December 14, 1979 in Novi Sad. He is the first laureate of the Branko’s award (Brankova nagrada) for poetry, established in honour of the poet Branko Radičević. In the year 1957 Popa received another award for poetry, Zmaj’s Award (Zmajeva nagrada), which honours the poet Jovan Jovanović Zmaj. In 1965 Popa received the Austrian state award for European literature. In 1976 he received the Branko Miljković poetry award, in 1978 the Yugoslav state AVNOJ Award, and in 1983 the literary award Skender Kulenović.
In 1995, the town of Vršac established a poetry award named after Vasko Popa. It is awarded annually for the best book of poetry published in Serbian language. The award ceremony is held on the day of Popa’s birthday, 29 June.
Vasko Popa died on January 5, 1991 in Belgrade and is buried in the Aisle of the Deserving Citizens in Belgrade’s New Cemetery.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
January 14, 2019
4.5/5
UNDER THE GROUND
Muscle of darkness muscle of flesh
It’s all the same thing
Well what now
We’ll call to bones of all ages
We’ll climb to the sun
What then
Then we’ll grow pure
Keep on growing just as we please
What about after
Nothing we’ll go everywhere
We’ll be eternal bone-beings
Just wait for the earth to yawn
----
HIDE AND SEEK
Someone hides from someone else
Hides under his tongue
The other looks for him under the earth
He hides on his forehead
The other looks for him in the sky
He hides inside his forgetfulness
The other looks for him in the grass
Looks for him looks
There’s no place he doesn’t look
And looking he loses himself
----
WEDDING
Each strips his skin
Each bares his own constellation
Which has never seen the night
Each fills his skin with rocks
And plays with it
Lit by his own stars
Who doesn’t stop till dawn
Who doesn’t bat an eyelid or fall
Earns his own skin
(This game is rarely played)
----
AFTER THE GAME
Finally the hands grab the belly
So the belly won’t burst with laughter
Only there’s no belly
One hand barely lifts itself
To wipe the cold sweat from its forehead
There’s no forehead either
The other hand reaches for the heart
So the heart won’t leap out of the chest
But there’s no heart either
Both hands fall
They fall idly into the lap
There’s no lap either
In the palm of one hand
Now the rain falls
From the other the grass grows
What can I tell you
----
GIVE ME BACK MY RAGS
Give me back my rags
My raglets of pure dream
Of silken smiles
Striped premonition
And my lace-like sinews
My raglets of polka-dot hope
Of filigreed lust
Calico glances
And the skin off my face
Give me back my rags
I’s asking you nicely
[...]
Get out of my walled-in infinity
The dancing ring of stars around my heart
Out of my morsel of sunlight
The rollicking sea of my blood
My flow my ebb
Out of my marooned silence
Get out I said get out
Out of my living pit
The bare father-tree within me
Get out how long do I have to shout
Out of my head bursting into pieces
Out out just get out
----
FORGETFUL NUMBER
Once upon a time there was a number
Pure and round like the sun
But lonely very lonely
It started to calculate by itself
It divided multiplied
Subtracted and added itself
But remained always alone
It stopped calculating
And shut itself away
In its rounded sunlit innocence
----
PROUD ERROR
Once upon a time there was an error
So ridiculous so minute
No one could have paid attention to it
It couldn’t stand
To see or hear itself
It made up all sorts of nonsense
Just to prove
That it really didn’t exist
----
ECHO TURNED TO STONE
Once upon a time there were so many echoes
They were slaves of one voice
Built him arches
The arches tumbled down
They’d built them crooked
The dust buried them
They gave up the dangerous labor
Turned to stone from hunger
Turned to stone they flew
To find to rip to bits the lips
From which the voice came
They flew no one knows how long
Blind fools, didn’t they see
That they flew along the edge of the lips
They were seeking
----
Built like an empty gorge
You smell of absence
Alone you gave birth to yourself
----
UNDER THE SIGN OF WOLVES
On the highway just outside of town
They found horses with torn throats
Harnessed to an empty wagon
And on the top of a mulberry tree
A merchant changed into a white sheep
All night the wolves danced
Around the fruit tree reeking of human flesh
You would have known how to haggle
With those long-tailed dancers
My grandmother tells me
I stare into her pointed teeth
And try to puzzle out her laughter
Then I run into the backyard
Climb the snow-covered pear tree
And practice my howling
UNDER THE GROUND
Muscle of darkness muscle of flesh
It’s all the same thing
Well what now
We’ll call to bones of all ages
We’ll climb to the sun
What then
Then we’ll grow pure
Keep on growing just as we please
What about after
Nothing we’ll go everywhere
We’ll be eternal bone-beings
Just wait for the earth to yawn
----
HIDE AND SEEK
Someone hides from someone else
Hides under his tongue
The other looks for him under the earth
He hides on his forehead
The other looks for him in the sky
He hides inside his forgetfulness
The other looks for him in the grass
Looks for him looks
There’s no place he doesn’t look
And looking he loses himself
----
WEDDING
Each strips his skin
Each bares his own constellation
Which has never seen the night
Each fills his skin with rocks
And plays with it
Lit by his own stars
Who doesn’t stop till dawn
Who doesn’t bat an eyelid or fall
Earns his own skin
(This game is rarely played)
----
AFTER THE GAME
Finally the hands grab the belly
So the belly won’t burst with laughter
Only there’s no belly
One hand barely lifts itself
To wipe the cold sweat from its forehead
There’s no forehead either
The other hand reaches for the heart
So the heart won’t leap out of the chest
But there’s no heart either
Both hands fall
They fall idly into the lap
There’s no lap either
In the palm of one hand
Now the rain falls
From the other the grass grows
What can I tell you
----
GIVE ME BACK MY RAGS
Give me back my rags
My raglets of pure dream
Of silken smiles
Striped premonition
And my lace-like sinews
My raglets of polka-dot hope
Of filigreed lust
Calico glances
And the skin off my face
Give me back my rags
I’s asking you nicely
[...]
Get out of my walled-in infinity
The dancing ring of stars around my heart
Out of my morsel of sunlight
The rollicking sea of my blood
My flow my ebb
Out of my marooned silence
Get out I said get out
Out of my living pit
The bare father-tree within me
Get out how long do I have to shout
Out of my head bursting into pieces
Out out just get out
----
FORGETFUL NUMBER
Once upon a time there was a number
Pure and round like the sun
But lonely very lonely
It started to calculate by itself
It divided multiplied
Subtracted and added itself
But remained always alone
It stopped calculating
And shut itself away
In its rounded sunlit innocence
----
PROUD ERROR
Once upon a time there was an error
So ridiculous so minute
No one could have paid attention to it
It couldn’t stand
To see or hear itself
It made up all sorts of nonsense
Just to prove
That it really didn’t exist
----
ECHO TURNED TO STONE
Once upon a time there were so many echoes
They were slaves of one voice
Built him arches
The arches tumbled down
They’d built them crooked
The dust buried them
They gave up the dangerous labor
Turned to stone from hunger
Turned to stone they flew
To find to rip to bits the lips
From which the voice came
They flew no one knows how long
Blind fools, didn’t they see
That they flew along the edge of the lips
They were seeking
----
Built like an empty gorge
You smell of absence
Alone you gave birth to yourself
----
UNDER THE SIGN OF WOLVES
On the highway just outside of town
They found horses with torn throats
Harnessed to an empty wagon
And on the top of a mulberry tree
A merchant changed into a white sheep
All night the wolves danced
Around the fruit tree reeking of human flesh
You would have known how to haggle
With those long-tailed dancers
My grandmother tells me
I stare into her pointed teeth
And try to puzzle out her laughter
Then I run into the backyard
Climb the snow-covered pear tree
And practice my howling
June 24, 2021
Without head without limbs
It appears
With mad pulse of chance
It moves
With shameless pace of time
It holds each thing
In its passionate inner embrace
A white polished virgin corpse
Smiling with the eyebrow of the moon
- - -
I wiped your face off my face
Tore your shadow off my shadow
Levelled the hills within you
Crumpled your plains into hills
Made your seasons quarrel
Kicked the earth's corners from you
Tied the path of my life around you
My overgrown my impossible path
Now just try to meet me
- - -
You slept good for nothing
And dreamt you were something
Something caught fire
The flames writhed
Their suffering blind
You woke up good for nothing
Warmed your back
On a dream flame
You didn't see the flame's suffering
Whole worlds of suffering
Your back's nearsighted
The flame went out
Its suffering got its eyes back
Then it too went out blissfully
June 24, 2010
It’s no exaggeration to say the Field Translation series is a gift to mankind, and "Homage to the Lame Wolf" is its pinnacle. These short poems are playful and dark. They have allure and power; they offer surprise and surreal pleasure. My favorites are the Little Box poems, childlike and vaginal, as well as “Proud Error,” “Seducer,” and the Give Me Back My Rags series, which has one of the best lines ever – “the trash of my belly laughs.” Popa plays with folklore and tales, and as they constrict around their small worlds, the poems slyly expand and swallow you up. I’m sorry you cannot marry this book because I have already done so in several different ceremonies: the secret licking and bookplating ceremony, perched on pew in the Catholic Church, on a plane with the pilot officiating, by laughing deep into its pages, and under the chuppa with the glass shards stuck in my foot.
November 29, 2008
Popa's wildly imaginative surrealism is satisfyingly counterbalanced by his formal and logical soundness. Some poets fatten up their poems with unnecessarily dense verbiage, to hide the fact that the poems' underlying skeletons are deformed; in contrast, Popa's poems are skeletal, so it's easy to see that the skeletons of his poems are structurally sound. Popa's poems are beautiful in the way that a mathematical proof is beautiful.
Another thing I admire about Popa is the way he takes simple things (e.g., a pebble, a wolf, or a box) and, by not letting go of them too soon, is able to transfigure them into richly meaningful symbols. That is, he's not afraid to be symbolic.
Popa's poems are easy to like: they're the kind of poetry I might recommend to people who say "I don't like poetry much" or "I don't understand poetry." I liked the following poem sequences best: "Games," "Give Me Back My Rags" (he can write great love poetry, too!), "Homage to the Lame Wolf," and "The Little Box."
Another thing I admire about Popa is the way he takes simple things (e.g., a pebble, a wolf, or a box) and, by not letting go of them too soon, is able to transfigure them into richly meaningful symbols. That is, he's not afraid to be symbolic.
Popa's poems are easy to like: they're the kind of poetry I might recommend to people who say "I don't like poetry much" or "I don't understand poetry." I liked the following poem sequences best: "Games," "Give Me Back My Rags" (he can write great love poetry, too!), "Homage to the Lame Wolf," and "The Little Box."
February 28, 2016
Oh god. Had to read it twice in a row. I want to run away to Siberia with this book and read it over and over some more until it mysteriously osmoses through my skin.
No idea how that would work. Vakso Popa might.
This is love.
No idea how that would work. Vakso Popa might.
This is love.
April 18, 2023
Many seem astounded by these poems. Me, not so much. They are simple, almost simplistic at times, yet do harbor deeper, beyond-the-words meanings.
Other voices should be heard, must be heard, other styles explored and examined. That the work does not necessarily appeal to me in no way means that it is not worthy. The opening poem, "White Pebble", is magnificent! And there are several stunners in the first half of the book. But the second half and all the wolves began to wear on me.
Other voices should be heard, must be heard, other styles explored and examined. That the work does not necessarily appeal to me in no way means that it is not worthy. The opening poem, "White Pebble", is magnificent! And there are several stunners in the first half of the book. But the second half and all the wolves began to wear on me.
September 9, 2025
3.25 stars. thank you, vesna, for the graduation gift! this collection took me awhile to finish :/ but i cannot deny the moments of beauty within it. “bone to bone” was a highlight; it reminds us that connecting with others is not just for the living.
“what do we do when the dogs come
they like bones
we’ll stick in their throats
and love it”
“what do we do when the dogs come
they like bones
we’ll stick in their throats
and love it”
June 13, 2019
Popa does so much with so little. This is a top ten 'selected poems' for me. Every page dilates my pupils with its complex simplicities. Love these folkloric portions from Popa's much larger body of work.
January 25, 2018
There's a rugged plainspokenness to the weirdness here that really resonates with me. Like a collaboration of Frank Stanford and Charles Simic both at their best.
January 26, 2019
Lotta wolves, folks. Lotta wolves.
March 9, 2025
Discovered this little gem while doing some online readings about the artist Joseph Cornell. I love how the poems do tricks in my mind. Love the chapters on pebble and the little boxes!
July 3, 2025
i've never read a similar work or style.
January 16, 2016
Charles Simic said in the introduction that it took him all of 20 years to finish the translation of one of the poems in this book. This kind of dedication is something that shows in the end product. The poems are couched in short lines, always courting the lower virtues of preciousness and precociousness, and yet they convey the careful pace of a poet who knows that the limits of his self-artistry are confined in the short telling lines. The strong presence and essence of wolf (fauna) in the poems animates Popa's lines. Read it for the sheer pleasure of howling.
May 21, 2014
3 stars , not because it's not good... some sequences are thrilling , but I've only read it once and it needs so very much more. There are some poems that just take my breath away but his poems are puzzles and without the key the journey in is all the more difficult. Suspect I will come back and upgrade this star line once I can get a good hold of him
December 27, 2019
Popa does a beautiful job of creating potent images throughout the collection, many of which are compellingly Surrealist and many of which feel very intimate and personal to Popa and his heritage. While some of the pieces were a little too abstract for my taste, overall the work is interesting, original, and enjoyable.
July 19, 2010
stripped-down and gloriously strange. archetypes in discussion with each other and an attempt, as simic puts it in his intro (paraphrased)--an attempt to enter the infinity of the mythopoetic. awesome. now i want to read The Horse Has Six Legs.
February 29, 2008
Great poet.
July 30, 2008
Unique and beautiful. I don't always get it but I love it. Thank you Dr. Carney for the directed readings course that introduced me to this book.
Read
August 3, 2010This is a loving and precise translation by Charles Simic of a poet from the Balkans practically unknown in the west.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews