(on the collection of poems True Water by Vladimir Martinovski)
Vladimir Martinovski’s latest poetic creation True Water brings true poetry for a true delight. Martinovski is an esteemed Macedonian poet, story-teller, essay-writer, literary critic and university professor of the younger generation. Much the same as with his previous poetic works, Martinovski successfully continues the beautiful and inspirational cruise through universal trajectories, which inspire true poetic craft, which in his case brings about exceptional, true values. In this latest poetic work, Martinovski is immediately recognizable for his fantastic poetic achievements, which tell of a yearning for the unknown, of a playful mindset, of love that embraces and demands to be embraced for the renewal of its power, of finding great joys in the little excitements in life if we know how to plunge into them, of a harmonic existence that unites the horizons and makes ours soul more noble, etc.
Martinovski’s prior works of prose and poetry are charged with similar aesthetic qualities; he has published haiku, tanka and haibun poems, quartets for reading, singing and listening, prose poems, poetic medallions etc. And now as an acclaimed and awarded master of the poetic word, he further encourages the reader to peer into his pool of True Water, which summons the reader with its transparent surface to come nearer and grab it, which means that the function of the water is to reintegrate, to attract. The lyrical subject breaks surface and coalesces into something bigger, revealing its depth, fertility and abundance; the reader follows a similar pattern of thrill and enjoyment in the aesthetic journey through the verses of this poet.
True Water is made up of four cycles: Little Olympics, Water Poems, Wall Writings-House Writings-Life Writings and Flying Poems. All poems retain the reader’s attention not only with their contents, but also with their structural characteristics and with the full diction. Although elegantly straightforward, the poetry is made complex with the presence of multiple cultural angles as portrayed by Martinovski. Therefore, Martinovski’s lyrical subject is singular in a manner that it appears to exert control over its reality by making up its own poetic image, which can fit in or clash with the poem’s next image. The lyrical subject further demonstrates an incredible ability to transcend what is obvious, owing to the defamiliarized structure of the image. Hence, this playfulness here is polyvalent: it is unique both in terms of themes and motives, as well as in terms of the unusual graphic and visual appearance of some of the poems. However, in this way the temporal aspect of the word is closing in fast towards its meaning, which makes it a challenge to decode it. Although most of us are not used to seeing the time cut out into images – for the film also gives us only an illusion of continuity, we must admit that it is no longer sufficient to interpret the image only through the prism of stopped time. And this poetry suggests precisely that: it is always possible to give life to words if we truly stand behind this act, as Vladimir Martinovski’s True Water does: with all life leaning next to the heart of the world.
Translated by: Stefan Luchic