from Dubravka Djuric

charles,

i am sending you beautiful cover of the first anthology of us poetry in former yu[goslovia], it was published in 1952 in zagreb, croatia, and i got the copy from luka stekovic, poet who is refugee from croatia. the cover is beautiful because the cover is fine exhample of socialist modernism. it was translated by two croatian poets, ivan slamnig and antun soljan, the poet included are philip freneau, william cullen bryant, ralph waldo emerson, henry wadsworth longfellow, john greenleaf whittier, edgar allan poe, henry davis thoreau, james russel lowel, herman melville, walt whitman, emily dickinson, bert harte, thomas bailey aldrich, sidney lanier, edwin arlington robinson, edgar lee masters, stephen crane. paul laurence dunbar, amy lowell, robert frost, carl sandburg, vachel lindsay, wallace stevens, witter rynner, lola rynner, w.c. williams, sara teasdale, elinor wylie, ezra pound, john gould fletcher, h.d., marianne moore, t.s. eliot, conrad aiken, claude mc kay, edna st. vincent millay, archibald mac leish, e.e. cummings, horace victor gregory, stephen vincent benet.

dubrvaka

Dubravka Djuric: i find this discussion very inspiring

thank you kent, david, murat, gheraldo, and luc.

first i would like to say that 'poezija' is one the most beautiful magazines in the area of postyugoslav cultural space, dedicated to poetry, as far as i know. it is huge, beautifully designed, representing poetry and other writings by croatian poets of different generations, which i find very important (the dialogue between the generations of urban poets), and with poets from other parts of former yugoslavia (which is so important in the long symbolic process of reconciliation in the space of former yugoslavia after the wars), as well as poets from other cultures, including us. i have just 2 issues. i have to mention, that now many magazines in the area publish writers from other parts of ex yu, which is so important, the languages are similar, the 70 years leaving in the same country is also important cultural and historical fact...

my and david's comments could be seen as examples of local cultural wars, that are now possible to be seen in the global virtual space, and as murat said, it is really interesting to have opportunity to discuss in this way... i find the things very complex and not with definitive answers, and everything have to do with power relations in our local cultures, with the fact of what social space do we inhabit (imperial or nonglobalized), and what is our place within that cultural space.

regarding the problem of the work that has the power of national representation, i will mentioned the work of the best known prose writer from former yugoslavia, dubravka ugresic, who in 1999 or 2000 in central european university in budapest at one session of regional seminar, said that she was for a long period of time writer who could not published in croatia because of her political stances (she was abandoned and erased because critical of every nationalism in former yu including croatian -- you could read her in english), and, as far as i remember, she defined herself as former yugoslav writer, but in every context she was referred to as croatian prose writer. so the way we construct our writerly identity, and how others see us, is sometimes complex matter.

it is interesting, that although us and serbia have been in conflict, during the 90s in serbia + montegenro appeared 5 anthologies of us poetry, and i suppose that the pictures of us poetry in them, despite the same authors that appear in all, are quite different. i will mentioned nina zivancevic's anthology, many of you know nina for she lived in us for long period of time, connected with beat poets, new york school, and with language poets... and nina is among the most important poets for me writing in 80ies. the other is the one that i did with vladimir kopicl. kopicl is one of the most important poets from vojvodina, his books were specially important for me when i started writing in 80s. kopicl suggested that it will be interesting that my interest in nonnarrative mostly language poets and his interest for narrative poets could present dynamic picture of us poetry. and the influence of us poetry in postcomunist time is so interesting. people said to me that new york school is so important for some poets born after 1960 and after 1970 specially in slovenia and poland. ashbery and o'hara are translated in slovene, and some polish poets of generation born after 1960 named themselves as o'harist, i think in mid 80s. in croatia recently appeared two so interesting anthologies: one of african-american poetry translated and edited by bosnian-croatian poet mario susko, who i think lives in usa, and postmodern american poetry made by poet petar opacic, writer living in town split at adriatic coast, for which hoover's norton anthology is so important reference. (he also made an interesting anthology of us short story.)

i would like to stress one thing, that the western countries don’t have privilege to have a modernity, high modernism, and avant-garde, other parts of the world have it also. and all cultures have different heritages, and construct different heritages in different times, and in historical perspective, all this is about power struggles. if you have read maria todorova 'imagining balkan', one of the most valuable thing is that she points how countries and nations in this region defined themselves through history of modernism as integral part of 'western' world, or as its 'other', and the consequences were and are always extremely dramatic.

as far as i could see from a big distance, us poetry scene is so huge and diverse, and i find that fact so exciting... when i was in 1994 in usa, i wanted to broaden my interest, but i realized that it is so huge terrain, and that i find the work by language poets most interesting for me as a poet and critics with theoretical ambitions. and i suppose that this kind of work could be boring, and problematic in many ways for the majority of poets, not to mention the broader public, but it is good to have this kind of work, along with other kinds ... i am so exciting when i see other cultures, first of all us, because i study some aspects of this culture for more than 20 years, but also some other, for example polish, we have great translator of polish poetry biserka rajcic, which i find amazing..., and what i am amazed with is the high modernist/postmodernist paradigm as the one that is posed as a central... and i am really happy to see as a part of globalizing process how in many cultures people include always new names of different writers, theoreticians, etc, and discuss them, and making different parallel canons. i find this process that is taking place now for so many years important... i have feeling that this process is not still established in my context... working from 1994 within the feminist context in serbia, i think that we managed to do some important work in this direction reactualizing many forgotten women writers, theoreticians, etc, but these efforts are not enough. the same should be done with other areas, with poets and writers who are omitted from the BIG NATIONAL CANON. it is usually said that excluded or just mentioned writers are not big enough because their poems are bad. but we here haven’t questioned yet the category of 'good' and 'bad', because it is still believed that we all know what is 'good' and 'bad' literature. at the moment in serbia you have 2 dominant models of poetry (i suppose that murat points to similar distinction in turkish context): one is urban plain narration, and the other is a kind of religious-nationalist discourse which deals with 'heroic national past', local mythologies, and history in a very archaic way as if the modernism never happened (although sometimes this kind of writing could be find in the relation to what you could recognize as experimental style, which is important to have in mind). and these two models in different variations are the only ones available. you have cultures with more opportunities in different area of life, work, politics, and cultures in which you don’t have choice... someone may say that having choice is also just an illusion, but there are places where you don’t have that illusion... so it depends on the degree, but sometimes this degree really does matter in the construction of everyday life.... and the real limitations.

i would like now to turn to murat's discussion, which is so important to me... the question of folk heritage in national culture... serbian culture is among cultures whose elite put at the center folk tradition, which means constructing and producing rural and heroic local universal timeless order. folklore epic is constructed as a kind of myth of origin. folklore epics are origin and from here 'all serbian literature comes'. put at the central place the folk culture is so problematic, because it limits the possibilities of the kind of work that is possible to write in local context. epic culture is constructed as rural, and 'essential' to serbian people, and this means that urban culture is not. or if it is, it is only in the range of moderate modernist styles. so i object and am for constructing different canons of different kinds or traditions of literature. SO THAT NATIONAL LITERATURE IS NOT AN ORGANIC UNITY, AS IT IS USUALLY REPRESENTED IN SMALL CULUTRES... and if i look at the difference between slovenian, serbian and croatian literature canons, i could say that in slovenian and croatian literature modernistic paradigms, even if moderate modernism/postmodernism is in question, are positioned as central. in serbia the difference is that 'we' have problem with modernism, and urban literature, so antimodernism is always somewhere near along with moderate forms of modernism. in anthologies it will mean that you will usually have antimodernist and moderate modernist poets, because national literature is considered to be ideal organism. and if you don’t represent it in this way you are accused not to be objective and you are unjust....

i would try to put this in more drastic way:

1. when in central and south east europe is referred to national poetry then it is not referred to poetry that comes from people or masses, but to the reception of international imperialist high modernist poetry from previous epochs in actuality. this reception is not conducted by the people on the bases of their oral traditions but based on the intellectual political and military/police elite who construe and impose the ideology of national identity in one historical moment. thus for a small cultures it is the determining struggle against late modernisms that are shown as if they spring out of national beings. national being does not exist it is just political construction. the struggle against it implies pointing to the synchronicity of the work with different actual contemporary cultural practices.

2. and what is contemporary serbian or turkish poetry tradition? it is enlightenment romantic context through which the political elites of these nations identify themselves in time and posit it as a universal image of its nation.

3. the crucial question here is the question of national populism, elitism and popular culture in contemporary world. national populism in serbia and in us implies imperialist populist war politics and the way that the serbian elites imitate american politics in balkan in their un-successful wars in bosnia. populism in its parodical humor, and entertaining folklore may looks like subversive, but it is always object of manipulation of cultural elites and state apparatuses.

Dubravka Djuric

poets in small cultures and outside gaze

Here are a set of posts to the Poetics List sent by one our contributors, Dubravka Djuric, who lives in Beograd. Also responses by three other contributors to IEPI. I think Dubravka’s comments are central to our ongoing discussion here, so I have compiled them. Dubravka herself will be posting more here soon. For more about Dubravka Djuric, visit her EPC author page. – Charles Bernstein


Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007
From: Dubravka Djuric
Subject: poets in small cultures and outside gaze

dear listmemebers,

it has been long time since i wrote something for this list. now, i would like to comment the site of green integer. surfing, i came upon it, and was really amazing to see so much poets all around the world, including the former yugoslav poets! which i find really great! i was specially interested in the poets from serbia, i am from serbia, and i was so sad to see that some right wing oriented poets are on the list... and now i think about how in small cultures such as serbia, you cannot have a second scene, because we are all 'one big family', right and left, and every poet who ever wrote experimental poetry is erased, actually could not be establish as a poet of any value, it doesnt fit into the picture of great national poetry, and what you call moderate modernism and postmodernism, or what you call(ed) mainstream poets just that kind of poetry do exist. other kind of poets cannot survive, they are out of sight, out of attention of dominant culture, and of course, they could never be in attention of outside gaze, outside attention. i find it very very sad... i dont know how are in other cultures outside usa.....


Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007
From: mIEKAL aND

Dubravka:

This is a fascinating comment & something that I suspected also. It
would be interesting to [have] Douglas Messerli's comments on this. I'm
also hoping you could give a few examples of these new experimental
Serbian poets & any translations that might be available online.
Certainly with the advent of the web, it must be much easier for un
(der)represented to establish a virtual presence, which is at least a
beginning to achieving a bit of recognition. Or if nothing else
propose to one of these monstrous poetry webzines like Jacket or Big
Bridge to put together a collection of the poets you think are
beneath the radar.

& for myself I would be also interested to know if there is a
historical Serbian avant garde of which we in the west know nothing...

~mIEKAL


Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007
From: Murat Nemet-Nejat

mIEKAL,

The avant-garde in a country like Serbia, or others places, may work
differently, having other points of reference. Is the avant-garde more a
matter of spirit, rather than associated with a specific style? Is it a
style or an idea?

The virtual space gives us a chance to discuss these points without all of
us being around a coffee house table though that would be even better.

Ciao,

Murat

Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007
From: Dubravka Djuric

thank you murat for this comment, when i read it, it occurred to me the
important question WHO IN ONE LOCAL CONTEXT HAS A POWER TO DEFINE WHAT IS INNOVATIVE AND EXPERIMENTAL. and as far as i remember, many critics here wrote about the poet i mentioned as original and innovative.

the other thing regarding vasko popa that occurred to me is: how one 'small'
culture represents itself for itself, and how it represents itself for other
cultures. then, who is transmitter into other culture, how he or she represents poetry and context of the poet re want to represent, and what is transmitter's poetical/political status in his or her culture, and how poets in that culture will accept the other, the work of the poet who through the translation enters their own cultural, and political and poetic context. what purpose this work will serve in that culture where it is introduced. being connected for the start with radical artistic context, popa was author who was not important at all. few years ago i was kindly invited by the fellow poet to participate in a round table on his work, and for the first time i read him, at least some major works, and what i found, that his poetry is dealing with all metanarratives of socialist former yu[yugoslavian] society... inscribing himself into the canon of great and important national poets.... and he was really important poet in introducing socialist modernism in serbia, after period of socialist realism, but that kind of poetry is not important for me. there is need to construct different canons, here too!

as a long-time translator of u.s. poetry, i started in 1984 translating black
mountain poets, first of all robert duncan and denise leverotv, and when i
discovered in 1988 language poets, i constantly translate this kind of
poetry, and i could now conceptualize it, that i fill the gap in my own
culture, the kind of work i would like to have in my culture and it serve me
to make my own poetical context.

another example. in 1986 working within theoretical/artist community for space investigation i decided to write about modern and postmodern dance. in usa and german library i found many books on isadora duncan, ruth st denis, mary wigman, etc. but at the beginning of 1990s in belgrade used bookshops my husband misko suvakovic and i found the books by maga magazinovic, who was pupil of rudolf laban, and other important dance and theater persons from the beginning of 20 century. and i havent heard of her in my own culture. recently, after i finished a huge work on usa experimental women poets, i start again reading micic, poljanski and few other poets, and understood that i have to search for pound, marinetti, kruchonik, and i have in my own culture the best examples from the same or little later period....


Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 11:52:32 -0500
From: Douglas Messerli

I just wanted to say that my ongoing PIP (Project for Innovative Poetry)
listing on the Green Integer site is not meant to be a tombstone to some
sort of past notion of poetic achievement, but an ongoing bibliographic
resource with vital younger poets added as they publish new and major poetic
work.

Accordingly, I seek out any suggestions and additions, simply asking for
complete bibliographical material, a photo, and a listing, in the original
language, of the books (with publisher name, city and date). With regard to Dubrvka Djuric's statements, accordingly, the writers she enjoys and would obviously hope to promote do not necessarily need to be "erased" or ignored. Green Integer also seeks out new translations on any interesting figures in any language.

Douglas Messerli
www.greeninteger.com


Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007
From: Dubravka Djuric

yes, i am happy to have one book of green integer, i admire douglas messerli's work, we met more than 10 years ago, which was so important for me, and i translated some of his poems, and i wrote about the anthologies: language poetries, and along with silliman's from american tree, it was back in 1988 the first book i managed to get in then socialist yugoslavia, and then started my interest in language poetry and poets... from his introduction in that anthology i learned lot of language poetry and poets, and the 'from other side of century' is one of the most important anthologies of us innovative poetry in my library. and i was so sad when few years ago i heard that sun and moon doesnt exist anymore, and i was happy when i got from messerli first book in my library of these beautiful green integer books...


Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007
From: Dubravka Djuric

thanks to douglas messerli and mIEKAL end for their comments!

i will try to elaborate what i see as problematic... small cultures usually severely exclude radical poetry, and it is usual that academics and critics construct narratives of national 'radical' poetry from the very moderate modernist/postmodernist and in the worst case of antimodernist poets and their poetry. as one example i will mention the name of one of the most celebrated poets, who in last 16 years won all national prices, who i think recently enters the serbian academy of science, milosav tesic (i think that i saw his name listed). he writes the most regressive poetry in serbia today. his poetry is one of the most important in the construction of new postsocialist serbian sociaty, that is a closed society, fundamentalist and nationalistic in many ways, religious, and ethnic and for sure anti-innovative. if i apply language poetry's materialistic theory of verse, then it is that on the symbolic level the kind of poetry that poets wrote is in some relation to the dominant national project or to, on the contrary, to the oppositional political project. many poets that i find in this list were 'radical' 20 or 30 or 70 years ago, and today, i.e. after 1991, most of them become very conservative.

when i first in 1988 read and translated first texts by language poets (bernstein, silliman, hejinian, watten, etc) i said to myself, these crazy us poets connect politics and ideology with poetry, what it has to do with each other... but after 1991, as a literary critic, thanks to my translations of language poets, i realized that many, most, almost all, urban belgrade poets from 70s became in poetry oppressed with nation, religion, and the shift was obvious: their poetry in 70s and 80s was urban, individualistic, usually inheriting modernist traditions but never was too much experimental, but with postsocialism, they started being involved in (re)construction of national and religious identities, and ideology of closed society so instead of individual 'I', urban landscapes, colloquial urban language, you had 'i' which is actually 'we' (the 'i' is important if she/he belongs to the national or religious community in a fundamental way, and patriarchal 'we'). language became very archaic, they introduced traditional poetic devices, and instead of urban poetry, you could read just and only the rural ones (with rare exceptions).

the other thing is the question what is innovative in a local context. i will start with the quotation of the croatian poet and theoretician from 70s and 80s who wrote long ago, referring to slovene, croatian and serbian literatures at that time. he wrote that understanding of literature in this nations "always involved notion of a political dimension. so this is how the amalgam that identified language with national values was created, also forming a literature that served as an articulation of national self-importance. in this way, the language almost automatically become a national value, just like mythology, political victories and defeats. language could not be entrusted to someone who mutilated it (srecko kosovel), who expressed national defeatism, because readings turned on the national political issue above all else." i quoted this because the most radical avant-garde poets from the beginning of the 20s century like ljubomir micic and his brother branko ve poljanski: complicated case, serbs from croatia, who in zagreb in early 20s established avant-garde magazine zenit, then moved to belgarde -- so they are croatian and serbian avant-garde (For the magazine SEE website of belgrade national library) were never, specially in serbia established as a cultural value. according to that, in the end of 60s and during seventies, in slovenia, croatian and vojvodina (northern part of serbia) begun the radical practices, most of that formations were in some relation with conceptual art, similar international art movements, but at that time just slovenian radical poets were in slovenia established as cultural value, you all know of tomaz salamun, who was one of then. in serbia the most radical poets were even today excluded from the company of poets who are worthy of any mentioning. they would be accepted if they changed their practice start writing prose, or start writing more acceptable kind of poetry
.
and of course, there were poets who were in 70s established as 'radical' poets, but if i have in mind practice of language poets, their radicalism would be questioned. but there were practices that were radical as language poets at that same time. most of those poets were conceptual artists, but were and still are too radical for the dominant, as you say middlebrow, culture. and in that culture there is NO place for innovative, experimental poetry, in its 'purist' way.

i find on green integer list names of srecko kosevel (mentioned in the quotation above) slovenian avant-garde poet from 20s, died very young, and miroslav krleza (croatia) who lived long and was before first world avant-garde, and between the two world wars was representative of bourgeois high modernism, and from that time he was against avant-garde, and after second world war, he was official playwrite and among the most influential figures in socialist time. vasko popa was the most important serbian poet of socialist modernism.... these figures are today cornerstones, constitutive figures, of national of literature but are not the representatives of radical innovative poetry practices (except srecko kosovel).

in 1923 branko ve poljanski published a book panics under the sun (panika pod suncem). in his introduction poljanski wrote "bogdan popovic will go through needle’s ears before krmeza (coin: krleza who is pig) will understand me,” and his brother micic ended the forward with the words: "our fatherland was the saddest that when we had to be born in there." when i read them today, i realized that nothing changed.

but i think and i hope that it is time for us to see what is and what was experimental poetry in a small national culture ... because it is a critical method that is established in u.s.language poetry.