There is no doubt that most of them/us in the period of first stepping on the scene acted with a sense of “generational unity”, mostly as a result of the decade in which they/we were born. Yet, looking now from a time distance, we can state that this unity was not based on the idea to start a “battle” for our shared poetics, but that it was grounded in the idea to start a “battle” to strive together to promote literary values and to have a different attitude towards literature (though individually experienced by each of us) – something which is characteristic for all new waves of authors – but, also following the idea to join our forces to breakthrough onto the literary scene. Then, after we have achieved this, each should continue to blaze his or her literary and creative path individually, as it befits (re)creators of verses, if they are poets in the true sense of the word.
There is also truth in the fact that during the past twenty years, based on the stylistic, poetic and/or thematic kinship between the works of certain poets who belong to the same generation (whether according to the year they were born or debuted on the literary scene) and are represented here, we have tried to detect the signs of a new stylistic formation and framework occurring which would include the new verses we were writing. There was discussion of a “new realism” arising, just as there were debates about the new urban poetics. Still, we need this book to confirm, now that we look from a time distance at the multitude of highly articulated and authentic poetic voices in the 21st century, that we shouldn’t search for such a common group denominator in Macedonian literature, even though there are evident signs of distancing from postmodernism (as well as post-postmodernism). Though, we should also mention that almost all the authors which are part of this book can be seen as trying to write in a different manner than their predecessors, to return to topics that were once considered “closed”, to write about themes once thought of as unpoetic… in their effort to try to make poetry out of everything – and truly succeeding in it. As much as the verses of some of the poets here are inspired not only by images, but also by everyday language which once (maybe not so long ago) had been alien to poets, there are some poets whose poems are on these pages who still adhere to that (just another relevant argument for the fact that we cannot speak of one single common stylistic formation). Yes, we need this book to showcase how majority of the selected poets, by using the “privileges” of free verse, have absconded from the metaphorical discourse and fully availed themselves of metonymy. A good portion of the poets express themselves through sarcasm, irony and/or humor in and in-between their verses, while the style of some of their literary peers is more marked by the use of condensed metaphors and symbols (while in others on can trace subtle references to the poetics of poets from the Macedonian canon). Finally, the poems of the remaining poets are almost always beholden with hidden metaphors or symbols only accessible on the second or third interpretative levels, lying just behind the first level provided by the metonymic discourse.
We need the Voices of the New Century to serve as a testament to the fact that certain poets represented here (have) show(n) and prove(n) that for a true poet today the lyrical needn’t be and shouldn’t be seen as decadent. These are writers who have published whole volumes of poetry that can and should be poetic guidelines on how to be a lyrical poet in the 21st century, while at the same time having a modern and different style than the canonized lyrical poets (not just those part of Macedonian literature), how to be a lyrical poet whose style finds its followers in today’s world. Yet, we also need it to serve as a witness that some of the selected poets (have) show(n) and prove(n) that you can be a poet of the city (this city that we all live in and which is part of our lives) in the Macedonian literary context, while still being understood and interpreted in any other literary environment, a poet who can find room for the eternal questions amidst urban life. They have shown how you can be a poet of the modern world, of our everyday world, without being a (passing) poet of the moment. How to be a poet of both new and eternal dilemmas that are integral to the essence of existence – of humans, of the world and of each and one of us as individuals. Thus, this selection of poems comprises of the work of poets who are trying to re-imagine everyday life through their poetic images, as well as of poets who only want to portray and/or see everyday life through an ironical lens due to its manifold absurdities, while there are also poets who still cherish the hope that poetry has the power to change the world and continue to be critics and rebels…