On Monday, a large number of visitors gathered at the Podgorica bookstore "Kosmos" to listen to a very interesting promotion of the collection of poems "Drvo" by the poet, publisher and writer Carlos Roberto Gomez Bares.
Bares came to Montenegro from Puerto Rico and spoke to the audience about the challenges of being a publisher who has been in the business for decades, his literary beginnings, and how this poetry collection came to be.
Bares said that it was his first time in Montenegro, but that it left a strong impression on him, with its beauty and artistic tradition.
"I am pleased to be here. Today I got to know the mountains of Montenegro. It seems to me that I have reached the highest peak, but I could not reach the end. A beautiful country, many poets, many publishers, and a great tradition of beauty. Not only natural beauty, but everything that we do, and what we produce, that happens by chance and is called art," said this Puerto Rican poet.
Speaking about his role as the founder of the publishing house "Isla Negra", he believes that he is, in a way, its prisoner, because in 33 years in that role, he published over 700 books.
"First of all, let me explain that I constantly have this struggle inside me between the publisher, the poet, and the professor who asked me what I am. When they ask me what I am, I answer that I am a prisoner of 'Isla negra' so I don't want to talk about 'Isla negra', but I have to. I founded 'Isla negra' 33 years ago. For years I didn't even want to find out the exact number of books we've published, but a student who works with us finally did at some point, and then he said that we've published 700 books. Sometimes I think 700 is a lot for 33 years, sometimes I think it's not enough," he says.
He explained that “Isla Negra” is an independent publisher that focuses on alternative literature that includes numerous authors from various countries.
"We are independent publishers. This means that we do not receive money or any funds from anyone. And therefore, as an alternative publisher, we publish exclusively literature. And all the books that are published, it doesn't matter if it's poetry, short stories or whatever, it's all done for universities. We publish mostly Caribbean writers, but we also publish some European writers. Irish, Hungarian, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin, from South America, and of course Caribbean writers," he says.
Bares said that he cannot compare Puerto Rico and Montenegro, but that it is a real miracle to see this many visitors.
"I wouldn't dare draw any parallels between cultures. All I can say is that for me, here, or in Russia, or in China, or in the United States, to have this many people watching and listening to us is a miracle," Bares said.
Explaining his beginnings, Bares said that he was lucky enough to have his first book win a national award, but he also explained how this led to him not writing anything for the next ten years.
"The first book I published was my first book. And that brought me my first national award. I was lucky. To get a national award with your first book, you really have to be lucky. Well, a little talent, too, but you have to be lucky. After that, I wrote three more books, but I already had this pressure from 'Isla negre' to publish other books. And then I published those three books that I wrote as one, as a compilation. I put all three in one book. Now, from a poet's point of view, I think that decision by me as a publisher was the worst one I could have made. Because the publisher realized and decided that those three books could be condensed into one. But that was a mistake. They had to be separate. After that, I stopped writing, I didn't write for ten years. Nothing. Not a line," he explains.
However, Bares eventually started writing again, which led him to always write several books in parallel with his publishing work.
"That's why I say I'm a prisoner of 'Isla Negre'. And then one day I started experimenting with other things. That's why publishing wasn't enough for me and I started looking for the poet in myself. From that moment on, I started writing and publishing my books again. And from that moment on, I've always written several books in parallel. Since then, never in my head when I start writing, I'm not writing a poem, I'm writing a book. Because those are two different things. I only write books," said Bares.
Explaining the creation of this compilation of songs, Bares said that this was an unusual case because the songs came about quite by accident.
"I was writing a book called 'Refugee'. And then I wrote and wrote a poem that didn't belong in this book at all. Because of the form, because of the structure, because of the tone. And I put that poem aside and continued writing the book. And then after a few weeks another poem that doesn't belong there at all. It goes into this book again and I leave that book and start writing this one. So, like scraps, leftovers from the book that I was writing at that moment, this book was created. And when I finished this book, I thought, oh my God, this book is terrible. Because I didn't plan to write this book at all. I never had this dimension of a book in mind," said Bares.
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