Circling: 1978-1987 by Dejan Stojanovic (Poetry in Translation)

Circling: 1978-1987 by Dejan Stojanovic

Amazon: Circling: 1978-1987 by Dejan Stojanovic (Poetry in Translation)

Loneliness

Darkness
You were not there

The darkness was longing for you
You, however, for the darkness
And you started shining

The Open Door

Nobody enters
Nobody sees the passage
Nobody recognizes the sign

The world is always open
Waiting to be discovered

Suns and the Night

Can nights see the suns
Being born and levitating
Do they take notice of a travelling day

Will the day tell its secret
Before it disappears,
Becomes timeless night

The Star and the Eye

A dying star is happy
It brightens
Sending its gleam and a good sleep wish
To itself

When the star dies, its eye closes
Tired of watching,
It flies back to its first bright dream

A Grain

Fire sprouts from a grain
The world from fire

Then, water begins to gush
The world to thunder

In the end
The world returns to a grain

Ascent of a Barbarian

There is enough fire in him to burn emptiness
Enough energy to fertilize space
Forces converge and spar within him
Clouds pass through his eyes

He is a destroyer of darkness
An exploding mind that illuminates the sky
A pre-cosmic supernova
Fed by an invisible Quasar

He is a conqueror who creates space
So he can breathe,
Swinging a chandelier of stars
To fill his mist with meaning

When he becomes tired
He sums the tab and returns unto himself
Noble and silent, rich and wise, but
Gray haired

Only his hair yet illuminates
The edges of galactic voyages
His children are still fertile, and
His barbarity has disappeared

Now alone—
Biologically spent, a cosmic aquarium
A clock of fish still bathes within him
But, he disappears

He knows he will be born again
And start fresh anew

A Melody of the Primeval Home

When you fly away
To a vacuum with no gravity
Where all forces negate one another
And melt into an overpowering dream

When you sense the call
Of ancient vistas
Picture a place where
Solitude is a protective blanket

When in the full lap
Of the eternal mother you fall asleep
You are lulled by the melody
Of the primeval home

Until the next reawakening
In who knows what form
But you will wait

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Poetic Circles of Dejan Stojanović

Dejan Stojanovic, Chicago, 1993

In a colorful landscape of contemporary Serbian poetry, a careful reader can recognize that one of its branches, with a decidedly reflective experience of the poetic tradition and heritage, corresponds with a Serbian medieval age, opens up for its Byzantine chords and, in the context of contemporary poetry, is closest to Modern Classicism. In the first wave of Serbian post-World War II poetry, this stream was at the very foundation of a revival, which is almost suppressed today.It seems that precisely today, in the atmosphere of almost complete saturation by the practice of ever changing poetic trends, Serbian poetry is returning to its basics. This picture of a slow rebound, a long awaited reorientation on the Serbian poetic scene, is already happening, by all accounts, and is being sensed in the actual literary production.Reading the book Circling triggers the associations of this kind of a wave, which is not underground anymore, but has transformed itself into an actual poetic phenomenon. Dejan Stojanović, obviously, is not influenced by any contemporary poetic school or fashionable poetic trend, and is not trapped by some sensibility as a “follower.” Stojanović, as a reflective poet of mature thought and discourse, revives the atmosphere of the ancient (antic) times even in the first layers of his poems. It is easy to notice what specifically marks Stojanović in Serbian contemporary poetry: In weaving his poems and building his lines, a poet has returned to the antic form of utterance, to the difficult and slow movement of the poetic matter, to the dignified and solemn tone, and that kind of wisdom which was nourished in ancient times.Far from experiments, from challenges of hazards and poetic adventures, Stojanović’s poems exude the dignity of ancient forms. Similar to the techniques of painters, Stojanović condenses his utterances into short, harmonious poems, most often colored with Mediterranean colors, surprisingly successfully. His poems, almost by a rule, are condensed forms made of short utterances. In the second part of the book, poetic palette becomes darker with an introduction of fantastic and hallucinogenic elements and even apocalyptic tones. Nevertheless, the principle of condensation and consistency of form is never questioned. Apocalyptic scenes and images of evil are expressed in huge blocks that give the impression of a work of an architect or a sculptor. Such are the poems “Vision,” The Chess Board,” “Arrival of Darkness,” and “River of Death,” which all appear as compositions. There is a feeling that Stojanović wrote his poems along with visual compositions; to that extent, visual-imaginative effects are impressive.Specific, surprisingly original, outside the collectively nurtured sensibilities and fashionable trends, Stojanović is an extraordinary example of creative individualism in a generation that nourished such individualism the least. For that reason, the book Circling is not only an example of an extraordinary poetic achievement, which represents a strong encouragement to the important branch of Serbian poetry, but is also an announcement of a moral and spiritual project – a project that belongs to the tradition of Serbian poetry and thought in the best sense of the word.-Alek Vukadinović
Afterward to the first Serbian edition (1993)Dejan Stojanovic’s poems are astute and spiritual tangents of a circle that comprises the phenomena hidden beyond the direct naming of the world and things in poetic transposition. With his poems, he seeks the borderlines between the content and its metaphysical expression, pure thought about the world and its essence. Passion and complete and easy flowing devotion to poetry and to the power of words, poetically and semantically, above all, shape his original poetic output.-Petar V. Arbutina