You with Hands More Innocent: Selected Poems of Vesna Parun

Vesna Parun was born in 1922 on the island of Zlarin, on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. She made her literary debut in 1947 with the collection of poems, Zore i vihori (Dawns and Hurricanes), and over the next 60 years went on to publish more than twenty books of poetry, as well as essays, criticism, and children’s books. And, although Croatian lyrical is a strong and fruitful tradition, until Vesna Parun it did not know a single female poet with such developed sensibilities and poetic expressiveness: Parun’s modus vivendi was “it is love that makes and keeps us human.” And while there are many poets in Croatian literature who have written collections of love poetry, about love of a woman as an object, here we have poems about love with a woman as subject.