Words by Petar Penda

Many spurt out

Try to win the world

Arrow down the center

Somehow always missing it.

But they keep running

Hoping to seize the attention

To boost the ego

And reach the unreachable.

They rain grief and joy

Palpable lies and endearments

Speak of the then and now

Promise tomorrows. 

---

Petar Penda is a professor of English and American literature at the University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Along with the translation of a number of short stories, poems, and novels, he published a prefaced and bilingual book of translation Eight Contemporary American Poets and a selection of poems and short stories from Bosnia and Herzegovina presented at the literary festival in Athens (Greece) in 2014.