ABDULAH SIDRAN - REVIEW

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ABDULAH SIDRAN

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MELIKA SALIHBEGOVIĆ

WHEN YOU WAKE UP TO YOURSELF / KAD SE PROBUDIŠ SEBI 

(a poetry collection)  

Confirmed to me - already with the first reading of this deep-pensive, thoughtful book - my own, old, literary experience: every genuine poetic speech, no matter with which measure of the power and inspiration it might be, is actually an attempt of the conversation with the divine!

Poet, that is, such a being who most intensively, and without a bit of the rest or respite, feels how it is "hard the hem / on the robe of the world" (Objects d'art Primitive), and how it is, alike that same robe, "worn out the reality through which you are only a humble passer-bay ("Still ask for you, the things").  In such a basic existential creative position is caught the poetic subject of this manuscript. And no matter how paradoxical it may sound – due to the drama of her position, Poetess' communication is without any bit of being pathetic, quite opposite, with the calm reciting, which as if it were happening in the rhythm of the human pace at a peripatetic walk. Asking for, and trying to reach, a measure of the divine in herself, and recognise a human measure in what seems to be the divine - Poetess writes a series of highly inspired soliloquies; "conversations" with soul mates from the ancient times; she writes an essay about language and translation; she addresses, even, a supposed future reader. Moreover, in no matter which of these forms she realised her effort - it is always linguistically powerful, aesthetically and morally relevant (why do we run away from that word?) - the binding. "In a silent humility / works your heart," there will say the poetess, and we, undoubtedly, believe her ("To the one borrowed to the reality").

It would be possible now - when it would not be a matter of a personal choice and taste - discuss about some simply professional aspects of the manuscript; punctuation innovations somewhere distracts a semantic precision; somewhere also, there "slips" in a complicated syntactic structure of a line - but we desist of such a discussion, not only because of "the individual choice and taste", but first of all because of far more essential thing: this manuscript will look forward to, a future reader! This "Black rose of Metaphysic" (Rose of darkness) will look for, and will find, a reader who will be simultaneously sensible and refined; patient, and hungry for an aesthetic enjoyment; curious, but a savant; with the equal measure of unhappiness and calm. Before him will happen a miracle of this poetry:

"only from larva a butterfly evolves
and it is just a colour
that the larva hides"

(Knowledge behind a dream)

In the name of this poetry - that "butterfly" which feels and thinks, and in the name of the future readership's joy and enjoyment - I do recommend this poetry collection of Melika Salihbegović for publishing.

Sarajevo, 21.2.1983.

(signature)   Abdulah Sidran  

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ABDULAH SIDRAN

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THE AUTHORESS' NOTE

After my release from prison, Director of the Bosnian Institute in Zurich, Mr. Zulfikarpasic, asked me the manuscript of this collection for publishing, and it was sent to him under the title "Sky Camel." It was one of three titles, which the collection was given by me immediately after the completion of the work on it.

Under another title, "Rose of Darkness" will be "war" published in its updated edition with parallel English translation.

The third title "When you wake up to yourself", and which was obviously preferred by me as its author, was supplemented by new poems, and is still waiting for publishing. If ever!

FOR UNFORGETFULNESS

Manuscript of this book, ready to be published, was arrested along with the authoress, Melika Salihbegović, by ex-Yu-communist police, on 23 February, 1983. But the story goes deeper. . .

Previous publisher of this authoress, "SVJETSLOST", shortly before her arrest, informs her through its Chief editor, a prominent writer (how communist, so democratic), namely comrade S.T., that her manuscript, offered under the title "When you wake up to yourself "is rejected to be published. For the first time in the history of her writing! Along with the oral notice, to the Authoress is delivered an anonymous review, on a piece of hectograph, with traces of a spilled coffee on the first pages, and which verdict literally reads:

4. Melika Salihbegović: When you wake up to yourself . A collection in which the Authoress is partly continuing research started in the first book (kaze / the narratives ) Sic! (Authoress) and partly opens up new spaces of her poetising. At the heart of her spiritual world are some existential, philosophical and religious ideas that obviously strongly preoccupy her writing, which is, by it, less poetically concrete and artistically determined. Better places of this collection are in the shadow of an abstract language, which, by its facelesness Sic!!! (The Sics are The authoress') cannot compensate for the absence of a fuller, more original poetic language.

P. S. Neither this is the end of the story. Suffering of this manuscript is so similar to the human's.

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