Snežana Žabić
Chicago-based transnational writer and musician Snežana Žabić is the author of the short story collection U jednom životu (KOS, Serbia, 1996), the hybrid memoir Broken Records (punctum books, USA, 2016), and the poetry collections Po(jest)zija/Po(eat)ry (SKC NS, Serbia, 2013) written with Ivana Percl, and The Breath Capital (New Meridian Arts, USA, 2016). Her work is included in Cat Painters: An Anthology of Contemporary Serbian Poetry, edited by Dubravka Đurić and Biljana Obradović (Lavender Ink/Diálogos Press, USA, 2016). She plays guitar, writes songs, and sings in Rent Party, everyone’s favorite feminist garage folk band. She teaches writing and literature as a part of the contingent academic workforce and has been a proud union member of UIC GEO, SEIU Faculty Forward, and UIC United Faculty.
Photo by David Sameshima
CONCRETE IS MORE BEAUTIFUL DISFIGURED AND STAINED
Today’s world is collapsing, and Concrete Is More Beautiful Disfigured and Stained is a record, a testimony kept for someone far in the future. With this collection, Snežana Žabić deliberately and forcefully pushes against the lyric tradition and leaves us haunted by the uneasy feeling that today’s world is merely a future archeological site. These poems deliver to us Chicago, Yugoslavia, Europe, and more, as only a poet fully in control of the complexities and nuances of language can. They are time-traveling aircraft that transport us back and forth between worlds until we are as exhausted and disoriented as any immigrant. Though she eschews poetry claiming to offer deep epiphanies or universal truths, her work cuts to the heart of the malleability of the identities assigned to us through academics, family, and class. Identity, after all, is a slippery construct.
sample poem:
marginal era
I ride a bicycle
along the margin of error. My October all
in shambles, cigarette filters
stick to my wheels. I used to be
poor and famous. I write letters to felons
to keep in touch with the inside world. When it rains,
I take the pink line downtown, sometimes fall
half-asleep. Half of my face turns to wax.
Sometimes I’s the needle—the turntable
of the Loop spins the drowsy city.
sample poem:
parallel lines
No lift. No mountain slopes.
No pairs of parallel lines. Even in the 80s
skiing was for the well-to-do. I’d stop
by a K67 for a hot dog and tea,
just a kid and a tough red plastic kiosk,
a bite, a sip, fogged up glasses.
Now it’s hot pretzels after work, and work
never ends, but tap water remains
clear and odorless. I sing praises to chlorine
as it evaporates like a ghost of science.
One day workers ski resorts will reopen.
I’ll find myself on a hilltop. I’ll fall
and slide softly to the bottom on my back,
my skis a victory sign in the air,
for water processing plants,
for the well-to-do.
sell sheet
Click below for the sell sheet for Concrete Is More Beautiful Disfigured and Stained.
