Ljubomir Simovic is a major contemporary Serbian poet, dramatist, and essayist. His poetry, which he began writing during the 1950s, addresses issues that gained a new urgency in the turmoil in the 1990s that has afflicted the states of the former Yugoslavia. Moreover, his poetry attempts to help create a viable contemporary Serbian cultural identity from the tradition of early Serbian feudal history and the centuries-long Serbian resistance to the Ottoman Empire. Like his poetry, his plays address the issues of art and its relevance for oppressed people exhausted and impoverished by their long servitude. However, besides the tragic vision that often colors Simovic's work, many of his poems express an appreciative and even joyous acceptance of life. Some of his poems acclaim the vitality and the fantastic side of life and nature. Simovic is fully aware of the transient nature of human existence, and his poetry often...