Rooms and Fields

Dramatic Monologues from the War in Bosnia

Lee Peterson

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780873388160
• eBook ISBN:
  9781612774121
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: Literature

Winner of the 2003 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize

"These poems are full of surprises: the gods talk; ancient authors talk; the dictionary talks; very memorably, the bridge over the Drina River, roughly between Bosnia and Serbia, speaks two haunting poems. The dead talk, wolves talk, a teacher talks, with a chorus. Sometimes I like to imagine this long poem being staged. What the music would be! Who would do the sets! What languages . . .
Lee Peterson's Rooms and Fields: Dramatic Monologues from the War in Bosnia doesn't have a single wasted breath; its sense of necessity never lets up; I always feel that the people and animals and landscapes being written about are being honored. The work is compassionate and single-mindedly alive to its high purpose. What a rare thing it is to find the meeting of historical, political, and poetic wisdom."
—Jean Valentine, Judge

Rooms and Fields is history not simply documented and explored but also deeply felt. A poetic inquiry, its concerns are uniquely and fundamentally intimate. Compassion drives this collection of spare and gracious poems.

ROOMS

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY

Sabiha

I had decided to study history at university
the day the library started burning.
I was loaded down with books on my way to my parents’ house.

People darted. They jerked like fish
caught on a huge, dry stone.

I stood and watched for the longest time.
Pieces of paper lit on my shoulders and hands.
It was August, my birthday.

I’d been thinking how my mother would cry
when she saw I’d cut my hair. I’d light a cigarette. I’d wait.

I’d been thinking how to tell my father:
History, Papa. Not mathematics. Not physics.
My father mistrusted history.

I stood at the bridge preparing my speech.

The leather straps dug into my shoulders.

I stood until the fish settled on their stone

until ash gathered at my feet,
until it covered my face
and the rest of me.

COLORS

Zahid

At night in winter I would sit
by the blue and white flames of the stove
in the corner and watch my wife.

She talked about the town.

Her sister.

His son.

(I only looked to listen.)

She wore an apron with red buds
blooming across her chest.

She knit in her chair—shiny silver needles
and yellow wool.

She knit jumpers for our grandchildren,
jumpers for our neighbor’s son.

PAPA’S DREAM

Fatima

I.

This year the neighbors won’t bring eggs.

And the lamb we meant for Bairam
will be born still.

The ewe’s pointy skull through the rails
will scan the woods for her.

II.

Mama and I tuck our hair under scarves
and wear glass charms.

While my brother, Mufid, keeps an iron blade.

In the kitchen, we speak only commands, no names.

Only
Kahva.

Only
Tiho.

III.

Papa starts awake to a white dawn,
to dew and grain and the rest of us
sleeping.

He bends to tie his shoes like every morning.

Long before ours, his day begins.

WATER

Denis

Outside, the cement cracks where it wouldn’t.

We dig trenches to get to work.

Asphalt on top of asphalt on top of dirt.

I try to go at night, plastic bottles strung like lanterns
around my shoulders and thighs. Which is safer,
the dark walk at night or the sprint in day? It’s a running debate.

Sanja thought ahead and filled her closets with water.
Wine bottles, milk jugs everywhere.

We still take them, one at a time.

That’s how many she stored.

Much good it did her.

Blown wall. Half oven. Burned, curled wallpaper.

We take one and head to the basement
on days we wouldn’t dare run
on nights the cement cracks where it wouldn’t.

In the basement, everyone brings different things.

I take a book. Asim takes his makeup.

Mrs. Djurdjié brings her starving Persian.

ZLATA ON THE OUTSIDE

Rahima

Hurry, hurry.

Through
the outside.

Hurry.

From inside
to inside.

Hurry, hurry.

Hard rain
from the hills.

The outside
can catch you child.
Hurry.

MORNING

Petra

In the mists we move them through the orchard
or the fields (the long grass sharp) while my son
and his boys sleep in the hills until noon.

The strangers can’t stay but to take some bread.

Then my husband and I reach a hand and hard whisper:

God go with you. Go!

T...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by Jean Valentine
• Note to Reader
• Rooms
• The Bridge
• Fields
• Epilogue
• Notes and Bibliography
• Acknowledgments