Ana Božičević was born in Zagreb, Croatia in 1977. She emigrated to NYC in 1997. Her first book of poems is Stars of the Night Commute (Tarpaulin Sky Press, November 2009), a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her fifth chapbook, Depth Hoar, will be published by Cinematheque Press in 2010. With Amy King, Ana co-curates The Stain of Poetry reading series in Brooklyn. She works at the Center for the Humanities of The Graduate Center, CUNY.

W: Ana, this is poetry, art, words, text, essay, readings and much more, what does the word poetry mean to you in 2010 in an era fully immersed in multimedia, internet and television?

Ana: Poetry to me seems now much as it ever was: an old human practice, people reacting to/interacting with their environment, processing their experiences and transforming their worlds through words. That our reality now has new layers added by the technological media we interact with and through certainly influences the way poetry is written and read.  But I don’t think poetry needs to be protected from the influence of media; reality was never pure, and we should have more faith in our ancient practice. Poetry can absorb anything thrown its way…

W: Stars of the Night Commute is your first released poetry book, I did not read it all yet, I have to admit, in some excerpts I’ve found -maybe- explicit words, lines, with such rich vocabulary, an English more Cambridge academic and Briton-styled than U.S. East Coast, don’t you think ?

Ana: I really don’t know what kind of English my English is. People here like to use the word “hybrid” so maybe it’s that word. I studied what you call Cambridge English by the way of Croatian grade-school high-school & college textbooks and English Romantic poets. Then I moved to NYC at 19 and absorbed its stirred pot of accents and cusswords. I still have a Croatian accent and, doubtlessly, some bookishness lingers – though my poems sure like to curse. My view is that there’s nothing that doesn’t belong in a poem, there’s no language, high or low, that I won’t include if it fits. Even emoticons :). Dante was right.

W: A book that some reviews defined as awesome and terrifying, I could tell it was something that I never read before, a state-of-the-art poetry, did you expect this actual coverage and interest in your first book and how do you feel about this enthusiasm for your first poetry book?

Ana: Thank you. Well, I love it! It has been a solid little debut, I’m elated by the Lambda Literary Award nomination, the response I’ve been getting from U.S. readers and reviewers (most recently a right-on review in Jacket) and new connections with people on either side of the Atlantic. Suddenly I find myself with a whole new crew of friends and translators, and seeing my poems translated into Croatian & Serbian by the likes of Damir Šodan & Željko Mitić,  being in conversation with European poets, theorists, feminists – all this makes me feel connected, grateful.

W: Could you tell us how words and phrases are written, are there impulsive instances, events or situations that influence your subject, object or style in writing? Is there something natural and deeper than just re-interpreting a kind of reality ? Your poetry is really pure and so clear, this lets readers have quite a few interpretations about the words and meanings…

Ana: I’m glad you think my poems are pure and clear. That might have something to do with writing in English: even though I know the language quite well by now, I like to handle its essential elements, use deceptively “simple” words, and leave things a little elementary, a little rough around the edges. That way the poems can be both rich and poor at the same time. And readers can populate them with their own memories, sonic & syntactic emotions. There’s no one true interpretation of a poem. I don’t believe in purity, but it can be a hot disguise. I don’t write quickly, there are long periods of no words at all, and then they come in gushes – so yes, I guess they do come spontaneously, and you can see the rhythm(s) of those gushes in the work when it’s done. I see my poems as a part of reality rather than as its interpretations, they are objects/beings that you can hold in your hands, that I can throw at you, that might be used as tools. Birds sing, people sing – that’s how I try to see it.

W: Before this interview we talked about the Genova International Poetry Festival covered by Fabio our senior Italy Editor, you checked it out through Web, what are your thoughts about this festival and its actual role in the international poetry scene?

Ana: This festival looks like a dream. For a few years I worked for PEN American Center, whose World Voices Festival aims to accomplish something similar to the Festival in Genova, but its domain is, to a great extent, fiction. Looking at the Genova Festival site, you only need to say the names of writers assembled there: Mark Strand, John Coetzee, Wole Soyinka, Evgenij Evtushenko, Wolf Biermann, Bernard Noël, Arjan Leka, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Besnik Mustafaj, Benny Andersen, Svetlana Carstean, Krisztina Toth, Sibila Petlevski… that variety is a kind of poem too. The American poetry scene can get too wrapped up in itself – its movements and periods, though often influenced by international poetry, do spiral into self-involvement. It’s a huge country and too few of its people speak other languages or read poetry in translation. That just now was a gross generalization, but the United States’ class structure and the practices of its publishing industry are facts. So, an event exclusively aimed at presenting international poetry, aiming to bring poetry into conversation with other artforms – it seems incredibly relevant, and – please invite me, I’d love to come!

W: Do you plan to come to Europe to let European audiences discover your poetry and readings?

Ana: Again, I’d love to – who will have me? As a “young” poet, writing poetry isn’t what I do for survival, I have a job – I work on organizing cultural/poetry events at the Center for the Humanities of the City University of New York (here’s an example of an event we recently hosted with several prominent poetry organizations, the Annual Chapbook Festival) – so my travels are often constrained by time and resources. t + $ = I’m coming! I hope I’d have something to offer European audiences – perhaps a taste of USA poetry processed through my Osteuropean head would be just the thing.

W: You are following many projects, readings, Web sites, is there enough time remaining to write another poetry book, could we expect some fine poetry release for this year?

Ana: This year a small book of poetry will be published by Cinematheque Press – a chapbook called Depth Hoar (Givre de profondeur). Are you familiar with the chapbook format? They are books anywhere from 12 to 40 pages in length, so not as long as a full-length manuscript, but sizeable enough to make a poetic whole. I am working on my next book – I’m about halfway there. I’ll stay silent on that one for now.

W: Readings (“STAIN OF POETRY: A READING SERIES”) seem to be one of your main activities, could you tell us more about this series you are working on with Amy King, how it is going, how have you become involved in this project?

Ana: Well, Amy was already curating this series when I joined her, and over the past few years we have developed it into one of New York’s (or at the very least Brooklyn’s!) major reading series. We hold readings on the last Friday of every month, and feature six poets reading their work for ten minutes each. The poets come from all over the USA, we feature both “established” and “emerging” poets, and if we’re lucky we get an international guest every now and then. You can read a longer history of the series in my recent piece for Otoliths magazine, or at the series site stainofpoetry.com.

Amy: Stain has been one wonderful way of giving back to the poetry world. I enjoy giving readings myself, but I also know that providing a venue for other readers is an option I’ve been happy to invest in for a number of years now.  Hosting the readings each month brings us together regularly and helps sustain the sense of a local poetry community.  Readings in general are platforms not only to hear each other’s works, but to interact and discuss poetics in a personal way that online discussion or daily life may not permit. The poetry community, like any community, needs to be cultivated, and as a member, volunteering to plant a few seeds or water the garden regularly is rewarding and an opportunity not to be missed by any poet.

W: A question about new media and communication: does the internet give you more power or more freedom for poetry dissemination? Is that compatible with a poet’s philosophy?

Ana: Yes, I think the internet certainly does provide an important (and egalitarian) new mode of dissemination, especially for poets who might traditionally have had a hard time getting heard, for small and experimental presses (there’s a thriving world of these here in the USA!) – the internet offers the platform for a truly alternative poetry scene.  To quote Amy’s recent excellent interview on Huffington Post, “Poets are full of ingenuity, embracing it with an eye towards the shapes language takes. We see the changes in literacies, the technologies altering how people read and receive texts, and we react. With the advent of POD (print-on-demand) and the proliferation of E-books, small presses are springing from the giant’s loins and poets are doing it for themselves. From numerous niches, Whitman is stirring beneath our boot soles.” There’s nothing more compatible with the poet’s philosophy than finding a spot on the village green and saying one’s poems aloud, or handing them out. Walt Whitman would be proud of us, I think…

W: Could you tell us a bit about the difference between how poetry is received and disseminated in Europe (where there is not much enthusiasm for it) and the USA, where the enthusiasm appears to be considerable and poetry has many followers, as evidenced by the success of your reading series?

Ana: It surprises me that you say poetry is underappreciated in Europe – truthfully, I didn’t know that, but then I am not in Europe often enough to know. The USA is so huge, so though the number of people who enjoy poetry here might be miniscule compared to the masses who read, say, crime novels, there’s still strength in numbers – with so many writing and literary programs at universities, so many local and internet mini-scenes, you end up with quite a few readers. My answer to your question, and to the tendency to generalize about how poetry is or is not received, is to go local – look into poetry circles in major and minor towns all over Europe, look around on the internet, and I’ll bet my pen you’ll find some unexpected & wholly vibrant communities. For example, I did a lot of research into Croatian women poets, and I was delighted to discover a thriving network of writers & theorists I had no idea existed. Beyond the poetry supported by prominent publishers & national cultural organizations, there’s much wealth lurking in the avant-corners of Europa – there must be, I’m sure… but perhaps that’s just my acquired American optimism talking.

Remedios Varo (Spain 1908 – Mexico 1963), Ícono, 1945 [Icon] / Óleo, incrustaciones de nácar y hojas de oro sobre tríptico de madera [Oil, mother-of-pearl and gold leaf inlays on a wooden tryptich] / 60 x 39,3 x 5,5 / Malba – Fundación Costantini, Buenos Aires / Reproduced with kind permission of Anna Alexandra Gruen.

http://www.nightcommute.org
http://stainofpoetry.com

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Ana Božičević / Interview @ wasabix.com

Uscito per la casa editrice Elliot “I Cariolanti” di Sacha Naspini si guadagna fin da subito il plauso della critica e l’appoggio dei lettori, diventando un vero e proprio libro cult. Pubblicato nella collana “Heroes”, il libro è la storia di un anti-eroe Sebastiano, spaventato in tenera età dallo spauracchio fantastico e macabro  dei Cariolanti, e delle sue avventure ai margini della Storia così detta ufficiale. Bastiano è uno “nato di traverso” e la sua vicenda comincia dal basso, da una  buca dove sopravvive grazie a terribili espedienti con il padre e la made. Rispettando l’ortodossia letteraria e il “bildungromans” ci si aspetterebbe un’elevazione morale del personaggio e invece la sua ascesa sembra non arrivare  mai,  mostrandoci l’uomo sempre più simile alla bestia, in un romanzo che ha il suo tema principale nella “fame”. Una fame che diventa cannibale e onnivora mostrandoci il dramma dell’impatto della Storia, quella con la esse maiuscola, sulla vita degli uomini semplici- infatti non a caso a tratti, Bastiano ricorda il Candido di Voltaire. Il tutto è magistralmenraccontato in una prosa claustrofobica che va a completare l’atmosfera mozza fiato del libro. Ma di seguito sarà proprio l’autore, Sacha Naspini, a confrontarsi con noi sul suo libro.

Intervista a Sacha Naspini

Fabio: Bastiano è un antieroe, uno nato di traverso che comincia la sua avventura dal basso, dalla buca, ci si aspetterebbe un’elevazione del personaggio e invece la sua ascesa non c’è… Continua a salire di livello, ma rimane sempre “uguale”, un Candido di Voltaire, un ingenuo cinico… Quali sono le tue riflessioni su questo personaggio?

Sacha Naspini: Ciao. Bastiano mi è uscito da solo, l’ho scoperto anch’io passo passo mentre lo scrivevo. All’inizio l’idea di questo personaggio era abbastanza fumosa, l’ho tratteggiato in corso d’opera, come spesso mi piace fare. Non mi faccio dei plot, degli specchietti di riferimento, tengo tutto in testa, dove posso cancellare e correggere il tiro come e quando mi pare. Per I Cariolanti mi serviva un personaggio forte, nel senso di incisivo. Volevo scrivere una storia che non ammettesse pieghe di fraintendimento; ci sono stati alcuni momenti in cui ho dovuto prendere un po’ di coraggio di petto per non stare lì ad affondare a metà. Bastiano racchiude tutti i “simboli” del libro, credo che sia la sua forza maggiore. Nei movimenti, nelle intenzioni, nella suggestione generale. Nella voce. E volevo scrivere una storia circolare, lui che parte dalla buca e si fa la sua bella passeggiata nel mondo. Lo scheletro dello scheletro del libro è semplicissimo. Senza tanti “giochini” sui piani narrativi eccetera. Sono stato una specie di reporter, ho seguito il mio personaggio nell’arco della sua vita e gli ho scattato un po’ di foto, cambiando gli obiettivi e le angolazioni. La sua evoluzione è stata anche un po’ la mia. Bastiano impara dei codici e li usa a modo suo, in maniera totalmente trasversale.

F. : Possiamo definire il tuo libro come un romanzo sulla fame?

S.N. : La fame, sì. Quella dura e cattiva. Ma anche la fame dei sentimenti, di un posto nel mondo. Il tentativo di riempire quello strapiombo che c’è sotto il languore normale, e che in Bastiano sa tanto di buco nero.

F. : In questo libro ci proponi la tua visione della Storia, l’impatto che ha essa sull’uomo comune. La Storia è dunque Cannibale secondo te? Ha fame anche lei della vita degli uomini?

S.N. : Bastiano nasce alla fine della Prima Guerra, la sua vita – le sue istantanee – hanno una cornice precisa. La Storia è la Storia, ha i suoi movimenti. Bastiano, come tutti, è costretto ad adattarsi, perché si trova sul convoglio in marcia. Lo scenario de I Cariolanti è chiaramente importante: sarebbe stato tutto diverso se avessi trasportato la storia ai giorni nostri, per esempio. Con la guerra, la fame, la povertà, le impellenze animali ci si stringono addosso, ed era quello che cercavo io. Spogliare, togliere il superfluo, e vedere come poteva rispondere un personaggio del genere alla contingenza.

F. : La prosa, il gergo, la parlata claustrofobica che usi per sviluppare la vita di Sebastiano per caratterizzarlo… Come l’hai ricostruito? Su quali basi.

S.N. : La voce, l’accennavo sopra. Per me la voce che si usa per raccontare una storia, viene anche prima della storia stessa. Per Bastiano mi serviva un timbro istintivo, in qualche modo decostruito. Be’, in questo senso sono stato abbastanza fortunato, ce l’avevo dentro, non mi sono messo a fare prove o cose del genere. A dire la verità, di “prove” in senso stretto non ne faccio quasi mai. Comunque, in questo caso, sentivo che l’approccio di pancia funzionava bene, mi dava l’impressione di raccontare cose complicate in un modo semplice, facendo abbaiare tutto un non detto che a me premeva tenere su, nella pelle.

F. : Gran parte del libro è in discorso indiretto, o in versione epistolare, a parte gli ultimi due capitoli dove il discorso si fa diretto… Come mai questa scelta?

S.N. : In realtà gran parte del libro è in discorso diretto. Bastiano è ripreso in certi monologhi che hanno comunque un riferimento: un soldato morto, un maiale, la mamma, i contadini greci di cui non capisce una parola, il padre che lo ha chiuso in uno stanzino… Poi ci sono le “esterne”: la lettera di Sara, che lo racconta. O quelle che un deportato scrive a sua moglie lasciandole cadere dalla fessura dei vagoni a ogni stazione. Era soprattutto per dare movimento, filtrare Bastiano anche attraverso altri occhi.

F. : Progetti futuri. So che uscirà quello sui Noir Désir… Hai altra carne al fuoco?

S.N.: Sì, esce il 20 ottobre prossimo la mia monografia sui Noir Désir per Perdisa, nei Rumore Bianco, diretta da Luigi Bernardi. È stato come un viaggio raccontare questa band, l’ho fatto con la mia voce, nessun trasporto narrativo o cose del genere. Ho ripercorso la storia di questo gruppo pazzesco che amo da sempre, e che ultimamente è passato all’attenzione generale solo per la tragedia di Vilnius, con la morte di Marie Trintignant. C’è un sacco di disinformazione su questo fatto, la gente si è soffermata soprattutto sui titoloni sparati dai giornali. A parte questo, i Noir Désir sono un’altra cosa.

Nel 2011 uscirà il Best Off di Minimum Fax, dove sarò presente con il racconto “La comune dei sentimenti”. Sempre per il 2011 è prevista la pubblicazione di un’antologia importante, che però ancora non posso dire nei dettagli; lì sarò presente con il racconto lungo “Il canile”. Come purtroppo non posso dire niente dei due romanzi che, se tutto va bene, dovrebbero uscire sempre nello stesso anno.

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NASPINI E I SUOI “CARIOLANTI”