Luck in Sarajevo by Izet Sarajlic
Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times
In Sarajevo
in the spring of 1992,
everything is possible:you got stand in a bread line
and end up in an emergency room
with your leg amputated.Afterwards, you still maintain
that you were very lucky.
Luck in Sarajevo is a very short, but powerful poem. There is not much to be said about it. I love this little poem. I love how the character in the poem stays positive despite what happens.
What especially speaks to me is the third line in the first stanza; “everything is possible”. This is usually said and meant in a positive way, but when you read on the main character doesn’t encounter very positive things. Having to stand in the bread line and having your leg amputated seem to me as two horrible things. Despite this, the main character still counts itself very lucky. All I can do is admire such positivity.
This poem speaks to me on a very personal level, because I went through some stuff during which I had to stay very positive and count my blessings and I think that is the essence of this poem, because after all, everything is possible.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Publication date: 1994
For those of us who would like to read the poem in it’s original language:
“Sreća na sarajevski način”
u Sarajevu
proljeća 1992. godine
sve je moguće;
staneš u red za hljeb
i završiš na Traumatologiji
sa odsječenom nogom.
Poslije toga još kažeš
da si imao sreće
Lost in Fiction 