Stevan Raickovic is a leading representative of intimate, lyric poetry in postwar Serbian literature. A prolific poet, Raickovic emerged on the Yugoslav literary scene in the early 1950s with work that challenged the socialist realism dogma dominating the immediate postwar years. Raickovic's rebellion against the prevalence of social and patriotic themes in vogue at the time assumed the form of lyric poetry focusing on the self and the sphere of personal, subjective emotions. In his formative years as a poet, Raickovic never succumbed to mainstream influence. In the turbulent 1950s, as socialist realism was banished from the literary scene and replaced by an innovative, highly cerebral poetry whose methods grew increasingly refined, Raickovic continued to be faithful to his own vision of poetry, its main features being unobtrusiveness, simplicity, and intimacy. Although Raickovic began writing at the same time as two fellow major poets, Vasko Popa and Miodrag...