The Beginning of Cartography

Marija Knežević
Translated from the Serbian by Sibelan Forrester

To be a thingwithout use value.To be a thing that gains value over timethough no one knows why.To let yourself be calleda decorative item.To hear that you’re superfluous.To hear they can’t make it without you.To breathe inside yourself.To change owners.To be unpossessed.To be an object of admiration.To change locations,to avoid migration.To be satisfied.To be a ship.Face turned to the sea floor to beon both sides of the deep.To leave a tracenot for eternity.To sail in.To sail outthe same way.To be loved in harbors.To be a ship.To lovethe better part of life in open seato dream of harbors.To avoid waiting. To movealways by the same pathfrom harbor back towards it.Entranced by the nets on deck.To transform cargo into stories.To be a ship.To bear yourself without effort.To be kin. To anyone.To men, women, algae,tigers leaping at a deer,lotuses settled in their own tears,islands, caves who have at least onechamber unexploredto be related.To love youand never to learn it.To be always suddenlynew joy and unexpected pain.To avoid existence.A dropon your skinthat’s already a memory of touch.The drop’s already another drop.To be actually never.To be now.Singularity in passage. Početak KartografijeBiti stvarbez upotrebne vrednosti.Biti stvar koja vremenom dobija na vrednostia niko ne zna zašto.Dozvoliti da te nazivajuukrasnim predmetom.Čuti da si višak.Čuti da se bez tebe ne može.Disati u sebi.Menjati vlasnike.Biti neposedovan.Biti predmet divljenja.Premeštati se,izbeći seobe.Biti dovoljan.Biti brod.Licem okrenut dnu bitina oba kraja dubine.Ostavljati tragne večan.Uplovljavati.Isplovljavatina isti način.Biti voljen u lukama.Biti brod.Voletiveći deo života na otvorenom morusanjati o lukama.Izbeći čekanje. Kretati seuvek istom stazomod luke ka njoj.Zabavljen mrežama na palubi.Pretvarati tovar u priče.Biti brod.Nositi sebe bez napora.Biti rod. Svakome.Muškarcima, ženama, algama,tigrovima u skoku na jelena,lotosima nastanjenim u sopstvenim suzama,ostrvima, pećinama čija je bar jednaodaja neispitanabiti orođen.Voleti tebea to nikad ne saznati.Biti uvek iznenadanova radost i neočekivani bol.Izbeći postojanje.Kapna tvojoj kožikoja je već sećanje na dodir.Kap je već druga kap.Biti zapravo nikad.Biti sad.Jednina u prolazu.

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Photo of marija knežević
Photo:
Bane Radišić

Marija Knežević (born 1963 in Belgrade) is a Serbian poet, fiction writer, essayist, and translator who has published eight volumes of poetry, and eleven novels and collections of stories and essays. Her work has been recognized with both local and international prizes, and one story from her collection Tabula Rasa was chosen to represent Serbia in the 2012 Best European Fiction (Dalkey Archive Press). A selection of her poetry has also appeared in translation in New European Poets, ed. Wayne Miller and Kevin Prufer (2008), and in the anthology of Serbian poetry, Cat Painters, ed. Biljana Obradović and Dubravka Djurić (2016). After graduating with a degree in literature from the University of Belgrade, she earned an MA in Comparative Literature from Michigan State University. She now lives in Belgrade.

Photo of Sibelan Forrester

Sibelan Forrester is Susan W. Lippincott Professor of Modern and Classical Languages and Russian at Swarthmore College. She has published translations of fiction, poetry and scholarly prose from Croatian, Russian and Serbian, including Elena Ignatova’s bilingual book The Diving Bell (Zephyr Press, 2006), the selection of poems by Maria Stepanova in Relocations: Three Contemporary Russian Women Poets (ed. Catherine Ciepiela; Zephyr Press, 2013), and folktales in the volume Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales (University Press of Mississippi, 2013). Forrester won the 2014 AATSEEL Award for Best Scholarly Translation and twice (in 2006 and 2013) the Heldt Prize for Best Translation in Slavic/East European/Eurasian Women’s Studies. Her scholarly interests include Russian poetry, folklore, translation studies, and women’s and gender studies.

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Brookline, Massachusetts

"A remarkable new collection... The poems of Breathing Technique feel like seeds planted, roots that will serve as a foundation to something larger. As the collection’s title suggests, a focus on what maintains life leads to the many moments of joyousness seen within these poems. The poet knows what it feels like to thrive and brings that to the reader, all while acknowledging the process to reach that point."
—Greg Bem, Rain Taxi

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