Vasko Popa is one of the great post-war European poets. From surrealist fable to traditional folk-tale, from personal anecdote to tribal myth, Popa's poetry embodies in an original form the most profound imaginative truths of our age, precisely located in the reality and history of Serbia, in the heart of Central Europe. His Collected Poems is an essential work of our time.   Vasko Popa (1922-91) was born in Vrsac in the Serbian Banat. He was elected to the Serbian Academy in 1972 and the Acadmie Mallarm in Paris in 1977. He lived in Belgrade where he worked as an editor for the publishers Nolit.   Anne Pennington (1934-81) taught at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she was Professor of Comparative Slavonic Philology.   Francis R Jones has twice been awarded the European Poetry Translation Prize for his translations of Ivan V Lalic.