Warning

Man make sure

you don't go small

under the stars!

Let

the gentle light of the stars pass over you all!

Don't regret anything

when you wake up from the stars at the last glance!

At its end,

place the powder

all into the stars!

The famous Croatian poet Antun Branko Šimić was born on November 18, 1898 in Drinovci, Herzegovina. AB Šimić's life path goes from Drinovac, through Široki Brijeg, Mostar and Vinkovci to Zagreb, where, with short absences in Belgrade and Dubrovnik, he lives until his death. He was educated in his hometown, Široki Brijeg, Mostar, Vinkovci and Zagreb. In the eighth grade, he dropped out of school due to the publication of a literary magazine because the directorate of the Donjogradska gimnazija in Zagreb did not allow, in addition to schooling, the simultaneous publication of a literary magazine. Disabled in school, he devoted himself only to literary work.

Antun Branko Šimić is the main representative and the most important poet of the expressionist phase of Croatian literature. He began with poems imitating AG Matoš, but abruptly performed a dramatic turn, performing as a new poet and critic, inspired by the Viennese expressionist magazine Der Sturm. He advocated the rejection of everything aesthetic, decorative and superfluous, believing that the only right way is to tell the truth. His word is written decisively, succinctly and clearly. He sought a higher and deeper meaning to life. It carried within it the conflicts, problems, and absurdities of modern man. He lived very hard and poor. He sacrificed everything for literature. In the only collection of poems published during his lifetime, Preobraženja (1920), he introduced new worlds into Croatian poetry and opened new vistas. It is the first collection of free verses in Croatian literature (48 poems). In it, he spoke in a completely unique way, introducing conceptual poetry and free verse into Croatian poetry, and omitting punctuation, he also gave visual power to his lyrical motifs. With an unusually concise expression, Šimić spoke about the themes of love and death, the basic motives of his poetry, rebelling against the inevitability of transience, which he understands as injustice in the broadest sense. Other topics that concern him are the topic of the human body and social issues (the cycle about the poor). He was also a literary critic and editor of the magazines Vijavica, Juriš and Književnik. He wrote numerous essays, literary and art criticism, polemics about new poetry, several short prose, a diary, an autobiography, several dramatic fragments, and began the novel Double Face. Numerous publishers later published selected works, collected works, prose and poetry as Body and We, Croatica, Vinkovci, 1998. Šimić's anthological poems are well knownPoets, Warning, Death, Return, The Poor Who Eat From Noon to Noon, Lunch of the Poor, Herzegovina , etc.

A cultural event called Šimić's Encounters was launched in his honor , which was held for the first time on May 30 and 31, 1970, in Grude and Drinovci.

The National and University Library in Zagreb preserves a valuable part of the literary legacy of Antun Branko Šimić.

Many found something for their souls in Simic. He stayed among us through the songs that live for him. They blink with their permanence in the name of the poet and emphasize the longing that Šimić did not have during his life, but he hoped for. Creating a collection of the Transfiguration , the poems were his refuge and a way of reconciling not only with the disease but also with the negative historical events in the environment and the time in which he lived.

Antun Branko Šimić could not choose between illness and health, between poverty and wealth, but he chose the greatest values ​​he could offer to people - his works. Thus, although anticipating death, he forever touched that rare spark of immortality with which an artist lives forever.

He died on May 2, 1925 in Zagreb, under the age of 27. He was not afraid of death…