Enesa Mahmić (1989) is a travel writer, a member of PEN Center Bosnia and Herzegovina. She published 4 poetry collections. Her poems have been translated into English, German, Franch, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Slovenian, Albanian and Hungarian- included in several anthologies: Social Justice and Intersectional Feminism, University of Victoria (CANADA), I am strenght (USA) , IFLAC antiwar and peace anthology (ISRAEL), QUEEN Global voices of 21th century female Poets (INDIA), Writing Politics and Knowledge Production (IRELAND/ZIMBABWE), Spread poetry, not fear (SLOVENIA), Wood poets (CROATIA), Le Voci della poesia; Imagine & Poesia (ITALY), World for peace, World Institute for Peace (NIGERIA), and more. She won international awards for literature: Gold medal Neigbour of your shore 2017 as best immigrant poetry, Ratković’s Evenings of Poetry 2016 and Aladin Lukač Award 2016 for best debut book.
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She exists
“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” – James Joyce
There is an invisible history
Hipparchia, the wife of the Crates of Thebes
Life without property, without conventions
Naked bodies in the squares
Disturbing as the truth itself
In the squares mobs are lynching
Hypatia of Alexandria
Peeling off her flesh and skin with sharp shells
Sinestus,
You can not question your beliefs
I have to.
Conical sections, neoplatonic books
Vanishing in flames
Rosa Parks refuses to get up on the bus
For a White man
There is a violent history
Life and death in Sorghaghtan’s hands
Great Emirs and Mongolian troops
They were not allowed to step out of the line
Which she set out.
Ahhotep, empress of all lands
She guarded the soldiers, returned the deserters,
Transformed the prisoners
Zoe with the poison
Lucrezia Borgia, more poison
Magic, revenge and meaningless fights
The latest archaeological discoveries
The bones of a mighty Viking warrioress
Age: 30 years, Height: 170 cm
There is an unwritten history
Saartie Baarkman, Venus Hotentotkin
An exotic behind exposed
In the cage, in London
Black skin, myths of savages
Woman cunt
All possibilities vanish
All she could have been
Before they pushed her into the cage
There were human gardens
In Brussels in 1958
Nineteen fifty-eight!
Like a monkey, a child tries
To get milk from a skinny tit.
The elite observes
The ticket is cheap.
There is Nadia Anjuman
Verses alienated by the hands of a husband
Professor of Literature
Without any penalty and judgment.
There is my courage
To live as if I did not know anything
To shake hands with people as if
Any human never harmed another.
**
Letter from Syria
My friend,
One complately plain morning
While drinking tea and carelessly reading the newspaper
The dogs of war knocked on my door
From that moment on there are no newspapers
No bread, no tea on my desk anymore
The laughtter of my children is gone
Now
In the middle of the chaos we are constantly trying to find
New survival tactics
Here-
Death steadily increase
There –
Heartless politicians
And academics bury their heads in the sand.