Milan Djordjevic, who was born in Belgrade in 1954, is a poet who gives equal weight to imagination and reality. This book ranges across his entire career to date. His earliest poems can deal with something as commonplace as a bulb of garlic, a potato, or an overcoat fallen on the floor. Later poems, often dreamlike and surreal, recount his travels in Germany, France, and England. His recent poems are more autobiographical and realistic and reflect a personal tragedy. Confined to his house after being hit and nearly killed by a car while crossing a Belgrade street in 2007, the poet writes of his humble surroundings, the cats that come to his door, the birds he sees through his window, and the copies of one of his own books that he once burnt to keep warm.

Charles Simic is a poet, essayist, and translator who has won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Wallace Stevens Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. From 2007 to 2008 he was U.S. Poet Laureate. A native Serbian speaker, he has published English translations of many poets from the former Yugoslavia.

Other poems by Charles Simic in Verse Daily:
September 16, 2010:   "The Future" "It must have a reason for concealing..."
February 13, 2010:   "What do these mutts barking in unison..."

Books by Milan Djordjevic:

Books by Charles Simic:

Other poems on the web by Charles Simic:
"Last Picnic"
"Preachers Warn"
"Roadside Stand"
"Country Fair"
"Two Dogs"
"Nineteen Thirty-Eight"
Fourteen poems
"Leaving an Unknown City"
"Late September"
Seven poems
Five poems
Eleven poems
Two poems

Charles Simic according to Wikipedia.

About Oranges and Snow:

"Charles Simic's superbly able, balanced translations of the Serbian poet Milan Djordjevic are a double-revelation. Here stands Djordjevic, a new poet--dark, antic, and mournful--for English-language readers. And here, at the same time, is Simic, a familiar but ever more esteemed presence--mournful, antic, dark--standing in a bewitchingly altered light."
—Nicholas Jenkins

"Charles Simic has translated the work of the major Serbian poet Milan Djordjevic into wonderful poems in English. From the opening poem we know we are in the hands of a master: Djordjevic keeps the stakes high as the poems fan out from the daily to the political and metaphysical. Image, tone, and metaphor combine to create an imaginatively striking voice. This is a distinguished translation by a distinguished poet."
—Ira Sadoff

"I've read a lot of contemporary poetry in translation, but I have never read a poet quite like Milan Djordjevic. The poems Charles Simic translates here display a strange, engaging, and darkly playful imagination."
—Jonathan Aaron