Versopolis is a celebration of emerging European poets on Sunday 9 July at 4.15pm – 5.30pm in The Market Theatre. It is FREE to attend. This is the third year of Versopolis events and they are always a highlight. Do enjoy this interview with Nikolina Andova from Macedonia:
If you could write poetry in another language, what would it be and why?
I find it hard to imagine writing in another language other than my native language, Macedonian. But every time when I write on my language, I feel that I re explore the language, I experience it as new, different, fresh, exciting. I think that with every new poem the poet should create a new alphabet, a new script, a new language.
If you could borrow one word from another language to use in your poetry what would it be?
In the John Coenig’s project, “The dictionary of obscure sorrows” Coenig describes various moods, situations, perceptions that do not exist in any dictionary. I guess I would borrow a word from this fictional language 🙂
For exemple – onism – n. the awareness of how little of the world you’ll experience
Imagine standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people’s passwords, each representing one more thing you’ll never get to see before you die—and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.
How does poetry allow you to be free?
Poetry owns the keys of all my basements and attics. When I sit down to write, when finally the irrevocable encounter with myself happens, I’m looking for those keys in the dark and when I touch finger them, the process of liberation starts.
Do you think that poetry offers a medium to protest? (Poetry as Protest is a theme that the Festival has engaged with in various ways over the last few years.)
I think poetry should face certain aspects of the existing, to examine, to move the things from its constant place, to do some transformation. I believe that every good work of art that communicates with the audience, perheps silently and unobtrusively, but still changes, forms and expands the field of awareness of it, and thus begins the process of building critically tuned citizenship.
What is the value of the Versopolis project for you?
Being part of Versopolis is a special joy for me, because of the excitement in discovering the different sensibilities of the new poetic voices. I believe that this project is successfully assembling the pieces of a big poetic puzzle, yet to be discovered and enjoyed.
