{"id":3036,"date":"2017-12-27T10:07:19","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T10:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/?p=704"},"modified":"2023-12-21T13:14:37","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T13:14:37","slug":"biljana-milovanovic-zivak-serbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/biljana-milovanovic-zivak-serbia\/","title":{"rendered":"Biljana Milovanovi\u0107 \u017divak, Serbia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biljana Milovanovi\u0107 \u017divak, Serbia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Graduated at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. Editor of the literary magazine and periodical \u201cBranicevo\u201d. She has published two books of stories \u201cTwo Days without Marta\u201d (2007) and \u201cSalmon swim upstream\u201d (2013), a play \u201cNeedless gossip\u201d (2012), a study \u201cThe meaning of writing in the new millennium or Is the Internet going to kill the book?\u201d (2015), several books in English with a group of authors from the Balkans published in the Netherlands, a book of poetry \u201cWhere Am I, and Why Here?\u201d(2017), a well as a hundred reviews, critiques, essays, stories and poems in the literary magazines, periodicals and anthologies.<\/p>\n

Her work has been translated into English, French, German, Greek, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Russian and Slovenian. Her poems and stories are part of the optional readers in the high school curriculum and in the Department of Neo-Hellenic Studies at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. She has received awards for her literary work, editorial work and cultural work. She teaches literature and Creative writing.<\/p>\n

I do not want to be a poet<\/strong><\/p>\n

You are poisoned by words of the read books,
\nYou are tempted and seduced by the unread ones,
\nYou eat word by word, page by page,
\nThe poison spreads through your body, and through your blood
\nReaches your brain and pumps in your heart.
\nYou pour it out on paper then,
\nContinuing the unstoppable process,
\nInfected by an incurable virus,
\nFurther poisoning the innocent and the untried.<\/p>\n

Why should you be a slave to that, why verses
\nAnd not say alcohol, drugs, sex money,
\nWhy should you trouble yourself in the morning trying to remember
\nA verse that escaped you before sleep
\nAs if your life depended on it,
\nInstead of simply switching on your TV,
\nSitting back in your armchair and watching a show\u2026
\nWhy walk where everyone else drives,
\nWhy swim where everyone else sails,
\nWhy fly alone where everyone else takes a plane,
\nWhy through the mud when you can take a dry path
\nLong since well-trodden?<\/p>\n

Do not bleed in vain, everything has been said
\nThat mattered saying.
\nAs if anybody cares about your kind of rebellion!
\nDo you think you are special only because
\nYou can walk, swim, fly
\nAnd are not afraid of deep mud?
\nFinally, do you really have to write of love and death,
\nSounding smart, elated and swept away, lamenting
\nOver the unhappy fate of all the poets in the world!
\nAs if somebody forced you to be it,
\nAs if you are the only one suffering.<\/p>\n

Being a poet is like having measles,
\nYou are ashamed of venturing among people
\nUntil you are recovered or at least
\nUntil the scabs have fallen off and the scars have faded
\nSo that at least from outside you look like other people.<\/p>\n

If you venture into someone else\u2019s company
\nEven thus, with scabs, thinking you should
\nToast with pride everyone that
\nWas infected before you,
\nThen something is seriously wrong with you.
\nDo not fool yourself; do not lie to yourself that you had to,
\nThat there was nothing you could do,
\nAs if there was absolutely nothing else
\nIn the world for you to do.
\nThere are so many honest jobs
\nYou could have chosen.
\nThe truth is you wanted it
\nAnd you wanted nothing else,
\nBut only what you love, and to love is a privilege.
\nWhat right have you to take this privilege, almost luxury,
\nFor yourself?
\nAs if you cannot see that on the other end
\nYou will be doubly bereaved for it!
\nYou, poet, fool,
\nEven if you were born like this,
\nYou could have corrected it,
\nBy going to therapy and rehab,
\nPracticing yoga, science or sport,
\nBuilding a political career, constructing, cooking,
\nKnitting, cobbling,
\nGoing to the monastery,
\nAnd even if nothing helps,
\nTaking tablets, they always help,
\nAnd even if they do not help you
\nYou could just die,
\nBecause everything is better than being a poet.<\/p>\n

The Underside of Literature<\/strong><\/p>\n

I turned, oh Lord,
\nI turned in an endless circle<\/p>\n

A little cog
\nIn the wheel<\/p>\n

I dared to break out
\nTo turn my own wheel<\/p>\n

I thought I could do it on my own
\nWith the similar cogs<\/p>\n

Without the rust and dirt
\nTo create the finest poems<\/p>\n

But worries soon caught up with me,
\nHeavy wheels ran me over<\/p>\n

What was left of me
\nWas melted in a cauldron<\/p>\n

To make new cogs.<\/p>\n

I would never allow myself to become a poet.
\nI\u2019d rather die
\nA worthy death.<\/p>\n

The Birth of a Starfish<\/strong><\/p>\n

Masked in glass
\nThe wave throws me
\nAgainst an impenetrable translucent wall<\/p>\n

I spot myself in it
\nAnd see the trap
\nOf the glass sea net<\/p>\n

The prey of surface
\nI wander
\nThrough the unknown whirlpool<\/p>\n

The wave drags me
\nTo the bottom
\nAnd I break<\/p>\n

Condemned
\nTo seven years of bad luck
\nTo the seven hundred and seventy-seventh<\/p>\n

For so many pieces
\nShone with a new life
\nStabbing into my body<\/p>\n

And the Creator Wave
\nWill make starfishes
\nFrom my congealed blood<\/p>\n

There, I surrender<\/strong>
\n(For Oskar Davi\u010do)<\/p>\n

There,
\nI surrender,
\nTo the adventurous hunter
\nWho kisses
\nUnfettered by rules
\nAnd lures into his arms the adventuresses
\nLike himself<\/p>\n

They submit easily
\nWithout compunction
\nThe taste of ephemeral love
\nOn their lips
\nAs medals
\nWithout the Seventh commandment
\nStuck in their teeth<\/p>\n

And I,
\nWith a marital veil
\nNever raised off my shoulders
\nEnraged by the hunter\u2019s audaciousness
\nStuck dumb
\nAstounded
\nBy the submissive response of
\nThe heart<\/p>\n

I surrender,
\nTo the thespian
\nWho took off his mask before me
\nWiped off his make up
\nShowed his face
\nAnd admitted:<\/p>\n

I,
\nSon of the Moon,
\nOffer you the moonlight hand
\nThe future in the Milky Way
\nThe cradle in the rain-bearing clouds<\/p>\n

I take you
\nBeyond the green hill
\nTo taste the ripe cherries
\nI take you
\nTo the bottom of the sea
\nTo catch colorful fish by hand
\nI take you beyond the horizon
\nTo warm ourselves by the sinking Sun<\/p>\n

Horizon is no limit<\/p>\n

I offer you Nothing
\nAnd Everything
\nFrom Wakefulness to Eternity!<\/p>\n

And he took me
\nTo the other side
\nWhere human voices
\nInstead of birds
\nSing freely of love
\nWhere what was and what will be
\nEcho together
\nIn the shells on the coast
\nHeld against our ears<\/p>\n

I wove a net for the winds
\nI shall be his last
\nHorizon is no limit.<\/p>\n

Through the Ribs<\/strong>
\n(before(love))<\/strong><\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t know why
\nShe couldn\u2019t explain
\nIn a language understandable to humans
\nWhy
\n(Maybe the birds and the fishes understand)
\nAnd really, what was it
\nThat came down from the sky
\nNow star spangled
\nNow grey and black
\nOnto her chest \u2013
\nSo she gasps like
\nA drowning man
\nThrough the reeds poking out from a lake\u2026<\/p>\n

What is it called?
\n(Maybe the beasts know\u2026)
\nIt comes from the stomach, whirls and rolls
\nLike a ball of yarn
\nLed by a needle
\nThrough the ribs
\nOver the muscles
\nThrough the esophagus
\nAnd over the vocal cords
\nTo the throat.<\/p>\n

And then
\nWhen it flies through the mouth
\nIt returns
\nBreaks the waist and knees
\nCuts the line lengthwise
\nThrough the inflammation<\/p>\n

And when the body becomes a ball of rags,
\nPierced, sewn up,
\nForever marked,
\nShe thought
\n(Maybe the actors know?)
\nThat it might be
\nSomething like that thing
\nThat isn\u2019t love,
\nAlthough it has the same face\u2026
\nAnd she surrendered to it
\nAs a sort of foreplay<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Biljana Milovanovi\u0107 \u017divak, Serbia Graduated at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. Editor of the literary magazine and periodical \u201cBranicevo\u201d. She has published two books of stories \u201cTwo Days without Marta\u201d (2007) and \u201cSalmon swim upstream\u201d (2013), a play \u201cNeedless gossip\u201d (2012), a study \u201cThe meaning of writing in the new millennium or Is the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"book_author":[],"book_publisher":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3530,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036\/revisions\/3530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3036"},{"taxonomy":"book_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book_author?post=3036"},{"taxonomy":"book_publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwabogdani.org\/sq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book_publisher?post=3036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}