Vasko Popa (1922-1991) was born in the Banat region of Northern Serbia, then part of Yugoslavia. During World War II, he joined the Communist underground and was imprisoned in a German concentration camp at Beckerek. After the war, he graduated from Belgrade University and published his first collection, Kora (Bark) in 1953, the first of his eight books. He came to be known as the most famous Yugoslav poet of the 20th century, as well as the most translated. Charles Simic is a poet, essayist, and translator. He has published some twenty collections of poetry, six books of essays, a memoir, and numerous translations. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2007 Simic was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

His most recent collection is Scribbled in the Dark: Poems (2017).