Klaonica: Poems for Bosnia

``Klaonica'' is the Serbo-Croat word for slaughterhouse--what Bosnia has become. In this anthology, poems by writers from Sarajevo and around the world take form as laments, elegies and dirges. Czeslaw Milosz, Joseph Brodsky and Ted Hughes are included, but it is the work of lesser-known poets that stands out. Describing the bombing of his city, Sarajevo poet Marko Vesovic writes, ``All night long the angels with pipes fell out of the sky / the awls dipped into poison pierced our ear-drums.'' In ``Concentration Camp'' Miljenko Jergovic avers, ``In special moments you suddenly feel one should not have talked of socrates / One should have talked of pigs.'' Poems written in support of war victims can also startle and astound. Welsh poet R.S. Thomas asks, ``What is it to be punished / for something you have not / done? We know it. / . . . We were born to learn / we are invisible.'' American writer Christopher Middleton observes, ``The blackbird once believed / He cranked the sun up with his song / . . . Now the warlords crank and crank / Only graves come up.'' And in a simple yet chilling untitled poem, London writer Ian Breakwell limns the chaotic modern world's means and methods of assimilating tragedy--and doing nothing about it. His rhythm is that of a radio deejay who in a single riff signals summer weather, a Bosnian girl fighting for her life in a British hospital, the scum found at the bottom of teacups, and the music of Billy Joel. Photos. (May)