"To you who turn day into night, night into verse, and verse into curse. The most beautiful thing in the world... To you, Mr. ON, who taught us that it is futile to look for drama in every verse. And you knew that it was not so... To you who do not write because you have to, but because you do not know any other way. To you for whom verse is both everything and nothing - both divinity and stupidity, both water and fire. Both flow and the element to which you cling convulsively. To you who burn in words a hundred times faster than in fire, and who, thanks to it, are always reborn. To you who rise through poetry not to reach unimagined heights, but to make the fall more magnificent... To you, Mr. ON, who are both holy and cursed. To you who, by writing about them, wrote about yourself. To you who had to translate stories about love into verse, into a form that defies everything, and above all eternity, and only then transience. But, so what - you knew how to you say, because you knew that everything fits into poetry. But not everything", is part of the text in verse, which is a theater critic Vanja Kovačević dedicated to the playwright and writer Edited by Nenezić on the occasion of the promotion of his book of verse dramas "The Holy and the Damned".
Nenezić combined three plays in verse, inspired by Montenegrin legends, into one book, "The Holy and the Damned", which, in addition to the play of the same name, inspired by the legend of Vladimir and Kosara, also contains the plays "The Crown", about the suffering of the Montenegrin Crnojević dynasty, and "Mountain Drama", a tragic tale about the love of a princess. Jelena Petrović.
That's why Kovačević decided to "hit" the verse with verse and showed that Nenezić's verse-writing is going well for him, and that both of them, in addition to friendship, also have in common the word - the powerful, strong one, the one that nourishes and heals, but also tears and kills.
"You are not naive at all, Mr. ON. You know very well that in a poem, a personal story is more important than any history. And you also know very well that every history is in the service of love. Big or small, it doesn't matter. Even though deep down in your heart and ribs you know that there are no small loves. Despite small people. You are not naive at all, Mr. O, N. Because the naive don't feel that they belong to someone. Or to something. Even if it's an accident. Or poetry, God forbid," said Kovačević.
Because of all this, he wished his friend and collaborator of many decades to create, love and suffer, to be torn apart by his own demons more than those of others, to shine, to burn, to be remembered for his curses, for the words he knew how to turn into action...
"I want you to walk upright, without hurting anyone. Just like before. That you carry within you the fate of a poet who is hurt by a vest for everything. Except for the verse under your left rib. And if you thought, Mr. ON, that I would add a postscript to this, you were sorely mistaken. It does not occur to me to continue writing to a poet who has blown me away with his verse a thousand times, who has restored my faith that words do have meaning and that life is not in vain. It does not occur to me to praise the verses that I regret not having written, even though I am not a poet. And most importantly - it does not occur to me to stop reading the words that you write, Even if I write until the end of the world and the century. Until the end of Eternity and friendship that I am proud of, but which I do not talk about," Kovačević said.
Mr Goran Radojicic, the editor of the program at the Public Institution "Zahumlje", pointed out that Nenezić, as a key problem that he had to deal with as an author, had the fact that all three plays were well-known, so that this general familiarity could have led him, in the author's sense, to retell what had already been seen and that the texts would therefore be neither successful nor interesting. "With the power and richness of the language, which I believe is the greatest value of this book as a whole, but also by including secondary characters, who in life and literary work only get episodic roles, he completes the mosaic that is created before the eyes of the readers. With this book, the author insists on the motif of man, be he an executioner or an emperor, and this enables new readings, analyses and makes dealing with these plays necessary from a literary, but also sociological aspect," said Radojičić.
According to him, these are modern dramas in verse in which Nenezić builds an entire world of ideas, relationships, and characters, breaking all misconceptions and taboos, exposing the truth about shame and sin. The dualism, which Nenezić already points to in the title of the book, is reflected, as Radojičić pointed out, through the moral principles of holiness and profaneness, spiritual and material.
"Neither in terms of ideas nor thematics, this book has failed the legends that are its starting point, but it has given them a new impulse, a new dimension that is reflected in the details whose transformations are a moral message on a micro level. In Nenezić's dramas, despite the time and customary frameworks they touch upon, the motif of women plays an extremely important role. Not a secondary and decorative one. Female characters are just as powerful and eloquent as male ones. They bring seeds of tranquility or discord, of intelligence or physicality into the overall atmosphere, depending on the perspective from which we observe them," said Radojičić, Nenezić's long-time friend and collaborator.
The book "The Holy and the Damned", as he said, is more than anything a story about a man, and that is why I consider it a success.
"About the connections between people, obsessions, envy and sin, about love and forgiveness, about virtue, but also naivety and the degradation of moral principles. At the heart of everything is the fundamental question of what a human being really is, and whether humanity as a virtue can survive."
Nenezić pointed out that after ten years of working on verse dramas, which are probably the crowning glory of his writing and career, it was time to start promoting them in the city where it all started.
"While I write poetry and plays, an entire life has passed...While I write poetry and plays, nations disappear, in the guise of honest democracy, bring back dictators and autocrats...The Internet has freed us from ourselves, and social networks from shame, but it is not for fools and cannot...While I write poetry and plays, I have forgotten my former poetry, my girlfriend, my computer, my pencil. I have forgotten my father, my hearth, my marbles and balls, Biovska Gora, Trebjesa, Školska Street and Đuro Salaj. I have forgotten Belgrade, Cetinje and Podgorica, only Nikšić remained in me," is part of the poetic essay that Nenezić read.
As he pointed out, while writing poetry and plays, he feels untouchable, invisible, and unattainable, like his verses, because the verse and he are the same.
"Everyone lives in the future, and I live in the past... I forgot my name, died and forgot my name, and after the winter came back to life. And I only remembered that I write poetry and plays and nothing more... While I write poetry and plays, my whole life unwinds, like a film strip in a traveling cinema... Verse by verse, verse creates. The two of us are one beautiful end without a beginning and a necessary beginning without an end. And may God protect us. At least we don't have any last intentions. We just have love, whatever it's called," said Nenezić.
The audience was treated to verses from the promoted plays, which were promoted as part of the April repertoire of the Nikšić cultural scene, and organized by the Public Institution "Zahumlje", by the actors. Jovan Dabović i Djordje Tatić.
"Woman is not from Adam's rib. She is Adam's spinal column and brain foam, which makes him upright and thinking, she is simply called Woman. And any spelling is bad if that noun is not written with a capital letter... If she were not called Woman, she would be called Wound, because nothing hurts and nothing heals like She. She is not a need but a state of mind. It is both a male invention and a medical one that blood flows through the veins. Woman flows if you would like to know," said Dabović, in a monologue by the fresco painter Prokopius from "Mountain Drama".
Bonus video:
