The poetry collection Stažirajki za svetec [Interning for a Saint] by Igor Isakovski (Скопје: Независни писатели на македонија, 2008) seriously makes us think about expanding the symbolization and metaphorisation in the name of the need to fund out most subtly what love is. According to Erich From, love is an active force of man, a force that destroys the walls that separate him from his close ones, a force that joins him with the others, a force that at the same time helps him overcome his feeling of loneliness and separateness, and allows him to be his own. Love is an activity, and not a passive affect7F. Its active character can be expressed by the claim that love is first of all giving and not taking (E. Фром: 29)8F. Isakovski tries to look at love as a mature answer to the existence problem. He suggests it in the very title – Interning for a Saint and then he stresses it in the selection of 36 love poems created in the period of six years (1995-2001). There is a game not only in the symbolic of the numbers three and six, but also in the freedom that the poet Igor Isakovski grants to the painter Mirosval Masin. The images, i.e. the art letters of Masin, starting from the cover to the last page of the collection intensifies the synesthesia of the poetic writing. By deconstructing the symbolic world and its values, Masin also adds: the representation of the colour which is part of its scent (Pieces), the representation of the bright voice / velvet and warmth / in the noisy shell / of this forgotten city (from the poem Endless Movement), but also on the colours that sing about tit (The Thin Crystal Thing). Via the simulacrum defamiliarisation, the recognizable reality before the eyes of the reader enters another, surreal world where his drawings are experienced, read, taken as images of objects related to femininity, and as drawings that imply parts of woman’s body, but also as newly-stylized letters of the Macedonian alphabet. All images placed here are also read as illuminations9F, but also as drawing made by a child-like naiveté which is transformed in a grotesque to have the final impression of a distilled refinement. Such as the letters and words related to femininity: A – as Anna (4, 87), B – as boska [breast] (7), Dž – as a dživdžanka [bird] (12), Š – as šiška [fringe] or šmizla [chatterbox] (12, 18, 27, 38), D – as devojka [girl] (29, 38, 41, 42), V – as verba [faith], vistina [truth] (32), Ј – as jatka [kernel] (33, 34, 59), О – as osnova [basis] or okata devojka [girl with big eyes] (40, 69), Ž – as žena [woman] (64), F – as fustan [dress] (67), D, in italics – as a devojče [little girl] or desna raka [right hand] (53) and P, in italics – as ptica [bird] (77).
Such are the drawings that imply a portrait of a woman (4, 38, 40, 77), a picture of a woman’s bust (27), erotic pose (12), femininity (7) and female inside (14, 87), breasts (7, 14, 27, 29, 38, 41, 49, 50, 81, 82), behind (14, 18, 27, 29, 50, 82), belly button (40, 49, 64), mouth (40), eye (40, 49). Such are the drawings that stress some female features and shapes such as the picture of a swan (18, 53), pear (29), bird (59), torn leaf or heart (59), J that italic, as jatka [kernel] (59).
In the beginning of this text we mentioned that the zone of the real from the well known Lacan’s trinity Real – Symbolic – Imaginary has become more and more narrow. If this is the case, then we also start to realize that we no longer live in the time when Imaginary not only wishes but also becomes Real. More and more! And in this way we also become aware that we really live in a culture of embodies images. Thus, the drawings of Masin are experienced as a bodily occurrence of the poem-soul of Isakovski. Or the words of Isakovski are additionally explained by the drawings of Masin. The drawings of Masin become a synonym of the words of Isakovski. Masin recreates the drawings, cuts them with Isakovski’s words and in this way creates verses- clothes as expression of the soul and spirit of the naked body. And finally, the real (love) becomes imaginary!
What can literature do at the time of virtual culture, wonders Dubravka Oraić-Tolić, when in the beginning there will be no more the WORD but the PICTURE? More and more we understand that art does not have the power that the avant-garde believed it had. If this is the case, then does it have any influence on reality, regardless whether it is real or virtual? Should not we start thinking about social engagement, but also about the autonomy of art, now as a post-engagement and post-autonomy? As the real horses are kept in the horse powers of cars, the social engagement and autonomy of art, stress Oraić-Tolić, are kept in an unusual way in the media shapes of art (2005: 261). The two poetry collections indicate a post-engagement of their own, but also a bold post-autonomy, in an original media shape of poetry.
Literature:
Исаковски, Игор. Стажирајќи за светец. – Скопје: Независни писатели на македонија, 2008.
Милосављевиќ, Верица / Дишлиевска, Елена. Реденик. – Скопје: Или-или.
Oraić-Tolić, Dubravka. „Vitrualni realizam – hrvatski post-postmodernizam” vo Muška moderna i ženska postmoderna. – Zagreb: 2005, 207-265.
Фром, Ерик. Уметноста на љубовта. – Скопје: Зумпрес, 1995.
Translated by: Elizabeta Bakovska
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7. Фром, Ерик. Уметноста на љубовта. – Скопје: Зумпрес, 1995, 29.
8. Most of the people understand the problem of love first of all as a problem of being loved, and even then as a problem of loving, i.e. the possibility to love. Therefore, for many people the question is about being loved, being worth of someone’s love.
9. Illumination (iluminatio) is a term that has several close/synonym, and even metaphorical meanings. It means: celebration lights; painting of a drawing, copper etching or images/traces on stone; sudden inspiration, light that shines upon/illuminates the soul; inspiration.