Article
Welcome to Croatian poetry - November 2004
January 18, 2006
The two poets presented here attempt, in their own ways, to take a standpoint from which it is possible, at least for a moment, to grasp the shaded and blurred side of daily experiences. Their styles and sensibilities are in sharp contrast.
Miroslav Kirin's poems consist of clear, apparently unambiguous drawings and his personal voice is often muffled as if he is there only by chance, while passing to some other place. From the background we can hear music, but seems as if it could stop or change at any moment, regardless of his will or intentions. For him, words are just vessels that, more or less successfully, carry imprints of the outside world.
The poems of Sibila Petlevski, on the other hand, are densely woven artifacts composed of numerous details. Every line carries a different fragment of the picture that slowly emerges in the process of reading. And each carefully constructed, multilevel and intricate picture only remains for a brief moment, as if it rests on the verge of the entropy into which it will disappear again. The poems presented in this issue are from an unpublished collection, so you can enjoy the world premiere of the new poems of Sibila Petlevski.
While both Miroslav Kirin and Sibila Petlevski mine the essence of the everyday and the physical world, their poetry differs dramatically in style and in the nature of each poet’s presence within the work.
When asked about poetry, most people will tell you it deals with inner matters. Of course, there have always been poems written in a so-called ‘engaged’ style, with the purpose of convincing a large audience to see something, presumably very important and indispensable. After all, modern propagandists and advertising specialists learned their trade mainly from poets. Usually, that is inconsequential to readers who want to spend their time with a text identified as poetry. For the most part, these readers want to hear a voice that speaks in an unusual way about things that belong to daily life. Tastes and fashions do change, but the urge to discern what lies beneath the familiar seems to endure. The two poets presented here attempt, in their own ways, to take a standpoint from which it is possible, at least for a moment, to grasp the shaded and blurred side of daily experiences. Their styles and sensibilities are in sharp contrast.
Miroslav Kirin's poems consist of clear, apparently unambiguous drawings and his personal voice is often muffled as if he is there only by chance, while passing to some other place. From the background we can hear music, but seems as if it could stop or change at any moment, regardless of his will or intentions. For him, words are just vessels that, more or less successfully, carry imprints of the outside world.
The poems of Sibila Petlevski, on the other hand, are densely woven artifacts composed of numerous details. Every line carries a different fragment of the picture that slowly emerges in the process of reading. And each carefully constructed, multilevel and intricate picture only remains for a brief moment, as if it rests on the verge of the entropy into which it will disappear again. The poems presented in this issue are from an unpublished collection, so you can enjoy the world premiere of the new poems of Sibila Petlevski.
© Miloš Đurđević
Sponsors
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère