On poetry: afterword to Bride dressed in black.

January 18, 2006 Poets join in the emotional unrest of their age. The anxiety of our age derives from its weakened spiritual communion, its lack of quiet and its superficial reverence for texts. We not only wish for fewer hermetic works, we hope for that unheard of thing — the creative phrase that will evoke the quintessence of being, to paraphrase Heidegger. If words do not convey this immanence, then the world of human relations must be nihilistic. Even though the modern world has conspired against the most meaningful force of human nature, we must admit that, despite that conspiracy, we know of miracles. Poetry remains the expression of the irrepressible human aspiration to freedom. Mankind is burdened down with knowledge, yet no one can master the universe of information. Fortunately, though, man still has at his disposal the function of the irreal, which is every bit as necessary as the function of the real. Imagination is the oxygen of modern man, the most basic sustenance of human nature. Figures of the imagination are not static or final, they are evasive and restless, perpetually completing and reproducing themselves. It would appear that man, over programmed and manipulated, no longer knows how to play. Play is by its very nature disobedience, resistance, an outgrowing of rules, tradition and violence.
As a creator I am completely independent — there is no force in the world that can control me. Each germ of a poem can give rise to anything, though I never know in advance what will come of my writing. This is my fate and my essence —- to live in and for that. It encompasses a desire for communication, for love, .for truth and progress.
Aside from spiritual revelations the most important thing in my life is poetry, the patronness of my creativity and my imagining. Under its guidance it has managed to anticipate, direct and confirm me in my most extreme doubts and decisions. It has given me the power of protest, resistance and revolution in a modern world of contradictions.
To all appearances poetry has lost its value today, but on this earth it is impossible to forget anything. Memory is already digging its bunkers and plotting for the time when imagination will come back to stay. Until then my love will be in mourning. Can you see, she has already put on her funeral dress. But my lovely and faithful) bride has often dressed in black, and for long. © 1977, Ana Jelnikar
From: Edvard Kocbek
Publisher: Le Livre Slovene.
SLO ISSN 0459-6242