It is not always easy for the reader to walk along the paths whose borders are determined by poetry Stanka Radjenovic Stanojević (Lotus petals, Croatian Literary Society, Rijeka 2023). Although full of maritime concepts and poetic images that indicate a kind of airiness, her poetry is far from being exactly airy and easy to understand. On the contrary, it often leaves us wondering about the possible meaning of both the verses themselves and the poetic images that we as readers construct when we find ourselves trapped within the framework of this unusual poetic discourse.
With the judgment that her short verses are some kind language austerities, as he notes Gojko Božović, reviewer of the previous collection Carnival in Amnion, it is not difficult to agree. And yet, we are of the opinion that his assessment should be supplemented, pointing to another factor that resulted in precisely this brevity of the verse as a recognizable matrix of Stanka Rađenović Stanojević's poetry. It is a factor of gender and sexuality, which is admittedly not explicitly highlighted, just as much is not openly said, except that it is announced through a kind of language game and a careful choice of words. Those who do not accept that the written word also bears a strong mark of the gender of the creator, will probably not agree that the poetry of Stanka Rađenović Stanojević, who is currently one of the indispensable Montenegrin and regional poetic figures, should, among other things, be read and pondered precisely in the light of the reached heights of contemporary female poetry. with us. It seems to us that this aspect should by no means be completely rejected and that it should be taken as an extremely relevant factor, especially in that formal-poetic part, i.e. when it comes to the brevity of the verse and her songs in general, since a modern woman has to achieve so much. And above all, he must not betray himself as a creator, one who recognizes some of the nuances of his being that he needs to dive deeply into and bring them to the light of day. And precisely in this part, where we look back at the depth of immersion in ourselves and our poetic being, we come to one of the most important characteristics of this poetry that is collected in the collection Lotus petals, and that is the power of the poetic subject to directly and uncompromisingly confront the raw poetic mass within himself, which he then, without mitigating the original authenticity and depth of the experience, shapes and finalizes into his final poetic product. It is precisely the consistency of the hermeneutics of the creation of this poetry and the fascinating power that pulsates from it, which, both with the word and with the transposed poetic image, simply hits us head-on, as a kind of heat stroke. Because what are the lines from the song Towards the horizon, (Lotus petals, st.11) with which the collection begins, but that impact? I build from broken dreams/ with the shadows of the house/ I think of ships to the distance/ and every bold one is swallowed up by the horizon/ In imaginary regions/ (shirtless, naked)/ happiness resides this bare arm, says the poetess.
The position taken by the poetic subject, regardless of the frequent enigma when it comes to the meaning of the verses itself, can be evaluated as extremely open because the poet does not shy away from having a position on many important issues. She not only does not avoid them, but reveals them by facing them bravely. Her position is a kind of Joker. This is the position of the one who, if not disrupting the established and inherited order as a whole, certainly calls for a revision of that existing state and established order. Lyrics: I'll figure it out undone,/ I understand the unsaid./ I cancel with whiteness/ and I don't care about the palimpsestsystem. (calm down Lotus petals, st. 26) are a confirmation of that position of the one who sets himself up as a brave challenger of all that is past, or even a collision with the subconscious itself (the poet does not use the expression without reason palimpsest), which usually disturbs the satisfaction with the present. She became a kind of person with just such poetry troublemakera, as we like to say today using this Anglo-Saxon coin that is often in circulation. Or let's look at the refined and extremely daring game when it comes to Eros, that powerful hider and provocateur that often leads us into the unexplored, so that we can see what power is behind this poetic record. It's night./ Clear around the moon/ follows my wanderings./ Wrapped by the wind/ I see a face;/ it reminds me of the past./ Withered leaves everywhere:/ whispers and rustles like an atlas./ Here,/ I am already carried by the moon's voice./ Now I live new springs. (Lotus petals, Sa stranputice, st. 14.)
To this it should be added that the poetic subject seems to have some kind of established procedure when it comes to emphasizing and defining that rebellion and resistance. Namely, the poems often begin calmly, the reader is given time to compose his own, usually visual representation, and then everything speeds up and reaches a point of thought, only to then break everything down and create opportunities for overcomposition. In the sign of that gradation, warm-cold, white-black, especially those songs that refer to childhood and youth.
When it comes to original strength and rebellion as important characteristics of this poetry, we can fully agree with Valerio Orlić, the editor and writer of the foreword of this latest poetry collection, who, noticing the power of Stanka Rađenović Stanojević's poetic spring, and the frequent discrepancy she uses as a method, says: "This is not the speech of silence, but an intense outpouring of inner voices that have the power to raise a poem to the pedestal of life, allowing her endless flight and free artistic cry.” (Lotus petals, st. 6.)
An attack on all the senses
The poetry of Stanka Rađenović Stanojević is a kind of attack on all our senses. We perceive this poetry, which is all interwoven with fractured images and strong thoughts and messages, as a confirmation that precisely thanks to poetry of this type, our aesthetic sensibility develops, and then also our critical spirit, not to mention how much it conveys the colors of the sea, the infinity of the air which is all around us, just as the newly discovered areas of our being are painted with dark colors. Song The breakfast us, for example mediates most of the aforementioned attributes: Sun in a plate/ otvaopen my eyes/ it's a sleepy breakfast./ The hands have wandered off./ On the wall clock/ shadows are ticking./ This timelessly accelerates me,/ while the body is powerless/ no matter where it goes./ And what if death is the only art that crosses the horizontal?( Lotus petals, v. 13.)
It is as if it is a kind of poetic zig-zag in which poetic images and the deepest knowledge of the world are rhythmically arranged, which in such an arrangement appeal in waves to our understanding, and not only cognitively, but to the totality of that understanding, which implies the inclusion of all our sensor. It is a kind of aesthetic attack and any other attack because the experience is unique, of course with the condition that we let ourselves be summed up with this poetry in a Heideggerian way, with a broken heart.
Placement in formal-poetic frameworks
Dubravka Đurić once before, evaluating the poetry of Stanka Rađenović Stanojević, placed this poetic voice in those contemporary poetic trends that are primarily occupied with words and in general linguistic possibilities of creating poetic worlds. Thus, in her poetry, according to this analysis, "the word from the functional, communicative linguistic environment of everyday communication ("market declaration") escapes into the poem, where it is freed from utilitarianism,... and acquires an absolute status, and this status guarantees the activation of her creative potential" (Carnival in Amnion, st. 128.).
In the end, we only have to complete this presentation. An account of a powerful, and above all experienced, collection of songs. It remains for us to see what remains when all the petals of the lotus flower fall off, or are torn. Let's see what that does to the substance, or body of poems that charged substrate of a poetic universe, how would you say it Dragana V. Todoreskov, another of our renowned literary theorists. Yes, we are left with that very body filled with true rebellion, extraordinary poetic images, and then also the logos itself, which under the pressure of everything that has been said does not allow everything to crumble into the ether and go into nowhere. Actually, it does collected by magnetism, as the poet herself says.
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