A rare privilege
to spend ten days in Croatia, at the closing of the summer season, at the
invitation, and enjoying the hospitality of, the Croatian Writers Association,
and my friends Tomica Bajsic, Ana Brnadic and Damir Sodan. I managed to spend
real time, not whisking through, in both Zagreb and Split, and meet a whole new
bunch of poets and artists.
At the centre of
my visit was a reading I gave at the Café u Dvoristu in Zagreb, where Tomica
and I chatted, doing a Q & A of sorts, before I read from my new book and
some translations were read. Thanks to Damir Sodan, I have dozens of things in
Croatian, and it was good to see my poems are depressing and weird for even the
most enthusiastic audience across languages.
Tomica and the
writers association did a great job of getting actually interested people to
the reading, the room was really all poets, students, artists, people who
really came to listen and engage. And as often happens, there is the perception
when I travel that I am doing so because of a sort of poetic meritocracy, as
though I must be known in England by virtue of my leaving it. This is
obviously, and enjoyably not the case. So there was no falseness to the modesty
of my responses against Tomica extremely generous questions and statements
about the Enemies project and Maintenant. Never more than in these energetic,
humorous, deeply enjoyable live moments, do I feel happier to feel like a
stowaway, or a pretender, or a parasite. All the better, and more so as my work
is clearly too dense for people to be supporting me because of that. The other
reasons I prefer.
Moreover, the
conversations I was able to have in Croatia, to really get to know Tomica, who
really is one of the most extraordinary men I’ve ever met, let alone a fine
poet (I urge you to look him up, to save me from adding the remarkable
biographical details here, his) were inspiring. The spirit of Croatians,
perhaps just toward me, but it seemed in general, was generous and open. I took
much, learnt much from chatting to dramaturges and sculptors and journalists,
some in their teens, some in their fifties.
I then headed
south to stay in Split at the generous invitation of Damir and had real writing
time in the 30 degree heat and intermittently thunderstorms. It is a beautiful
place. Much has come of this trip, not least the excellent possibility of an
Enemies project: Croatia in 2015, with readings in both the UK and back in
Croatia. Hard not to be excited at more time with such brilliant poets and
generous people.