Analysis of Vasko Popa’s The Fiery She-Wolf

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on June 17, 2025

On the surface, Vasko Popa’s fifth poetry collection, Wolf Salt (1975), appears to be one of his most hermetic works since it revolves around a wolf motif without many points of reference outside of the apparent symbolic. But once the reader breaks the “code” by understanding how Popa incorporated Serbian folklore into his poetry, the poems come to life: the lame wolf represents the pagan past of Serbia; the she-wolf is the Serbian land; the wolf shepherd is St. Sava, the Serbian saint who brought Christianity to the Serbs; further, if wolves represent the Serbs, then the wolf bastard is the modern Serbian man.

The strength of this collection resides in how Popa utilizes the cycle form as a way of approaching his subject matter: the regenerative power of the Serbian people despite centuries of oppression. A manageable way of seeing how well the poet pulls this off is by taking a close look at one of the cycles, The Fiery She-Wolf.

The Fiery She-Wolf is a cycle in five sections, each documenting an aspect of the she-wolf’s journey toward overcoming her tormentors. The first section is a description of the she-wolf. The imagery here sets the tone. She resides “In heaven’s foothills” and is therefore a sacred animal (l. 2): “Her body is a live coal”; her offspring “Wolves play over her back / And live in her crystal womb” (ll. 3, 14–15).

The second section is a hellish world in which her tormentors “force-feed her with burning coals” and give her “boiling quicksilver milk” to drink (ll. 6–8). Despite her torture, she still manages to snatch a star in her jaws to return “to heaven’s foothills” (ll. 12–14).

After she is caught “in steel traps / Stretched from horizon to horizon” (in the third section), her persecutors “hack her to pieces / And leave her / To the vulture’s talons” (ll. 2–3, 9–11). Still, with the “stump of her tongue” the she-wolf drinks “Living water” from the sky and heals herself (ll. 12–14). Through her regenerative powers, she overcomes her oppressors.

In the fourth section, being able to clean the “dog-ash off her body,” she takes on attributes of Perun, the pagan thunder god of the Slavs: “Lightning spawns / In her gaping jaws”; and “In the chasms / Below the forests of her eyebrows / Thunderbolts are ready for anything” (ll. 2, 5–6, 12–14).

Finally, in the fifth section, the she-wolf has once more returned to “heaven’s foothills” (l. 2). The difference here, however, is that her progeny have “Turned to stone in her womb” (l. 4). The she-wolf, though surviving her torture, now carries the dead within her. She then transforms again: from Perun in the previous section to Dabog, a Slavic god of the underworld. Despite her Hades-esque persona in the concluding section, the she-wolf “rises dead with thirst / Towards . . . the top of heaven / . . . the watering place of the long-tailed stars” (ll. 13–15).

In each section, Popa reveals how the she-wolf is able to exist and persevere because of her divine connection as represented in images of stars, holy hills, clouds, and thunder.

As The Fiery She-Wolf demonstrates, Popa uses the cycle to reinforce folkloric elements within his work through repetition and rephrasing to work up a rich metaphoric froth that transcends the locality of one’s history to tap into a more universal statement about the human condition. In the case of this poem cycle and Wolf Salt as a whole, the perseverance of a people is showcased. They are shown capable of throwing off their oppressors to maintain their cultural integrity.

Bibliography

Alexander, Ronelle. The Structure of Vasko Popa’s Poetry. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica, 1985.

Lekić, Anita. The Quest for Roots: The Poetry of Vasko Popa. New York: Peter Lang, 1993.

Popa, Vasko. “The Fiery She-Wolf.” Collected Poems. Translated by Anne Pennington and Francis R. Jones. London: Anvil Press Poetry, 1997, pp. 225–229.