Selma Asotić publishes book of poetry

Award-winning poet and Comparative Literature Ph.D. student Selma Asotić will publish her first book, Say Fire, with Archipelago Press in September 2025. The book, which has been heralded as a "masterful debut," is available for pre-order now through Penguin Random House and Archipelago Books.

“Born in war-torn Bosnia and Herzegovina, Asotić writes in a feverish present tense, tracing her family history in close lyric and careful reportage. “That’s how/ every history begins./ Something bursts, and everyone clutches their chests to see/ if it is they who burst.” Leaning into her own recursions, hesitations, and doubt, Asotić alchemizes language into something corporeal. With lines that conjure the chimeric turns of Alejandra Pizarnik, Lucie Brock-Broido, and Marina Tsvetaeva, Asotić illumines a life lived in the wake of war – the bodies that touch and leave us, like waves retracting their gestures.”