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In Две тишини he “asks” from us to seek, to experience “the silence between two words”, like in the first, untitled poem, a “portal-poem”:
There it is below, between two coasts,
in the silence between two words,
the warm seed of its own language,
leaning on its shadow it waits for nothing and – nobody. (25)
Not only that he asks from us to “enhale”, “taste” the silence between two words, but also to think of the distance: between two men, between two thoughts, between two emotions, between two coasts…
This “space” between two words is a “holy place” for their Creator Ante. This is how he experiences this space in a completely different poem:
In the space between two words,
in he transition from one to the another
there is the end. The silence comes first
and then, together with my mother tongue
ingrown like my twin
we will remember this light together –
our birth place. (193)
The poet is a “twin brother” to his and our language. Their birth place is this silence-light. This “birth place” was created (if I understand well and if I am on the right path as an interpreter) from the “warm seed of its own language – from the previous poem.
If Šopov wanted to depict the “birth” of the word, then Ante goes further – he wants to reveal – a new secret. If silence precedes “the birth of the word”, as he says, then there is another “birth” that follows, not only “birth of words”, but also “birth of silences” between them. The shaping, and even the dosing of silences between words is similar to biological phenomena. If the life is preceded by the non-existence or silence, the pre-silence, then the birth is the word – life. But life is also abundant with silence, emptiness, abysses, or episodes, phases that we grow out of. Then, the new next word that follows gives a full meaning to the silence that “lived” between two words.
Here Ante has put together a whole “planet” between two words, he has given a “mind” to millimeters” or the “oceans” between them.
I will give myself the right to understand that he maybe wanted to encourage us to give meaning to our “emptiness” in our lives ourselves. To teach us how to “stitch” the empty, dark spots.
But how? As we would ask a possible “teacher of life” – if there is such a person or such a profession. If somewhere sometimes the subject of “teaching living the life” is introduced, then the first literature can be this poetry. Poetry that in its own way has already “outgrown” the psychotherapist, the doctor, the preacher or any allegedly competent person.
The emptiness between two silences, maybe between the “non-being” and death is proposed to be filled in with life by Ante in a discrete, indirect way. If life is between these two silences, then what is found between the two silences in poetry is the word.
This cult spot, this “insides” of a woman giving birth, which “grows” in a natural time, reminds me of the time that Julija Kristeva calls a “woman’s biological time” (as opposed to the man’s one, which is a “project time”). This woman’s time is carried by nature, it gives it where it wants. And it wanted to give it to the poetry of the great poet. It is fertile, quite fertile is the “ground”, the soil that gives birth between the two blessed words of Ante. Even between each two words. And between each two phonemes or between two poetic gestures or movements. And his self conscience of this is crystal clear, but not shown in public, because of his modesty. That is why he never underestimated us, although he had obviously understood us more than we could understand him; that is why he left us verses as the ones in poem entitled He Chose His Words:
That is so, he thought,
Because without you there is no beginning
And without you there is no end either… (201)
Without pathetic, calmly, moderately he reminded us not only of the first scream at birth, but of the last word before death, their small mini-episodes, life-blocks, phases of our lives. The small subbirths and subdeaths, multiple in the course of a simple mortal life. This oxymoron asks us to be born again: “to place” many of our lives in a single life. Just like the poem “collects” more of its lives (and smaller poems) and in this way has more meanings (something like a multiplied polysemy in the theory of literature), our lives should become a “dwelling” or a “house” of more meanings.
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One of the most beautiful, most precious, most voluptuous “houses” in which I have ever “lived” – is Ante Popovski’s poetry. I honestly and warmly recommend you and ask you to wish to “move into” and “live in” these castles, palaces, where you will be treated as an emperor.
If there is a scholarly, competent evaluation of frescoes, if there is a “measure” for the pricelessness of our prides in the temples of this country, is there a measure, an evaluation, or a subspecialist to measure the pricelessness of these verses? If there is, then these verses should be protected by UNESCO, then we should join the European Union today, then Macedonia shall grow and be one of the biggest countries in the world… But, there is no measure for this evaluation, there is not even a science, or, if there is, this poetry is not worthy of it. Even if there are more sciences joined, more “readings”, I know that one will only reach some place. And again, it will be clearer to him than to all of us.
This national collection can be imagined as artistic paintings or as a gallery of icons. If each of his poems is framed and exhibited as a painting, or we set it as an icon, then there will be a priceless exhibition, which will ask for a separate huge facility, our “holy place”.
Because Ante is the big Macedonian donor, benefactor, well doer, a tireless investor. A creator… who left as a legacy for us the most precious “books for life”. He left a heritage for the hermeneutics scholars, philosophers, stylists, poets, and even doctors. The “poetic testament” is the book Две тишини, which we promote today. It is a crown (or the last word) of his poetry. Quite consciously.
If he unconsciously often consulted the supreme Creator, in maestros Holy Poems, then he unconsciously became our, Macedonian Creator, who will modestly greet you on the street, talk to you, and somewhere there he shall “carve” verses, wanting to help us, as his close of kin. Us, his kin, his seed…