The Odesa – UNESCO City of Literature Office continues to introduce readers to the project “Poetry in Cities of Literature.”
Planned for over a year, the project showcases examples of contemporary poetry from sister cities within the UNESCO Cities of Literature network.
The latest installment of the poetry series focuses on the German city of Heidelberg, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of its UNESCO City of Literature status last year.
Beyond promoting literary art, the initiative highlights the crucial support offered by UNESCO Cities of Literature: from festival invitations and translation assistance to artist residencies. These connections enable Ukrainian authors to cross borders, reach new audiences, and preserve their creative voices on the global stage. At its core, “Poetry in Cities of Literature” emphasizes mutual cultural enrichment, fostering an open exchange where books, ideas, and traditions travel freely, inspiring and uniting people worldwide.
Silvana Marijanović was born in Mostar and currently lives and works in Heidelberg. She published her first collection of poems, Heidelberg, in 2019 with the Belgrade publishing house Mali Vrt. Her second collection of poems, Vrelo, was published in 2024 by Povelja Publishing House, Kraljevo, Serbia. In the same year, the German translation of her first work, Heidelberg, was published by Eta Verlag in Berlin. Her poems have been published in literary magazines and on numerous poetry portals. Her works have been translated into Slovenian, German, Albanian and English. In Heidelberg, she was shortlisted for the ‘Heidelberg Authors’ prize in 2021.
We invite you to listen to Silvana on YouTube:
When they come
When they come, then at two o;clock in the morning,
They close the windows, turn the heating off, unload the heavy stones into the
darkness down.
You do not get up, but jump out of the bed,
you open the windows, turn heating and lamp on.
They, skilled hypnotists, convince you in an instant –– the universe
might be tight.
like a wool sweater after a wash cycle at 40 degrees.
Your heart, a small bird,
beats with the head against the wall.
The idle gentlefolk
Sit themselves after well accomplished work
On your bed and ask if they might smoke a cigarette.
„Yes, please indeed“, you say and wait only for the spark
of the matchstick,
so that, if only for a moment, you might see their faces
in the dark.
The project was created by the Odesa UNESCO City of Literature and being implemented with funds raised by Reykjavik City of Literature Reykjavík Bókmenntaborg UNESCO as part of the readings initiated by Milano City of Literature “Not Just Words” (Reading for Odesa) on February 24, 2024.
