A Wake for the Living

Dead-born will be your wishes.

Your every hope will be a widow.

And as for love, there won't be enough

To spread on a slice of bread.

—from "Twilight Metaphysics"

Translated and introduced with the surrealist wit that is Charles Simic's signature, A Wake for the Living offers American readers, for the first time in English, the brilliance of Serbian poet Radmila Lazic. T...