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ON THE BRINK OF THE ABYSS
$16About the Book
The fascinating aspect of Zingonia’s poem is the paradoxical unity of the two qualitatively different domains of the earthly and the spiritual. The two are interfluent. Though the culmination of the poem is in the divine love, I prefer not to read the poem in a linear way like in linear spiritual narratives such as Pilgrim’s Progress or Divina Comedia. Here, as in TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, past and future always move to the end – what is always present – and the end is in the beginning. It is pointless to trace the narrative or paraphrase Zingonia’s On the Brink of Abyss – a series of epiphanic moments of poetry at its intensest. The only justice a reader and critic can do to this wonder of a poem is to resonate with those ineffable epiphanies that have somehow slipped into language. What more can I do except to share with readers the way I
resonate with those precious moments of epiphanic agony and ecstasy. And congratulate Zingonia on this rare achievement which has no parallel in any poetry I know of.
– H.S. Shivaprakash
Poet, playwright, literary scholar and translator -
Midnight Verbs
$18About the Book
“What used to be borders is now you,” writes Marko Pogačar in this beautiful, inimitable
collection of poems, giving us a world of post-war Yugoslavia where “TV shows start with
familiar scenes.” What is the poet to do in this world? The poet demands the “green skull of
an apple.” It is a world where eggs chirp, newspapers rustle, and the dead are near. What is it,
this syntax of seeing one's country with full honesty, without any lyric filters? How does it
become so dazzlingly lyrical, nevertheless? “I dislike walking on a person's left side,” the
poet admits. “I shove the night into an evil e-mail / and send it to the entire nation.” And
behind him we see the world, “beautiful, like a burning guillotine.” It is blessed, this
strangeness of abandon, after all is lost. And yet, not all is lost. What is happening here? Real
poetry is happening. Lyric fire. I know it when instead of writing a comment on the book, I
just want to keep quoting. For poetry is a mystery that is communicated before it is
understood. Marko Pogačar is the real thing, and I am especially grateful to Andrea Jurjević
for these crisp, beautiful translations.
—Ilya Kaminsky
History is a constant and defining character in poetry where the most memorable lines
brilliantly combine dark, dry humor with a direct treatment of the physical. There we
discover a mad desire for laughter. For reckoning with rules. With borders. With God. Marko
Pogačar is a poet of expressive power and specificity. Almost every poem is intense and
scandalous, dejected and intelligent, or a poetic whirlwind of all of the above that’s not to be
messed with.
—Claudiu Komartin
Pogačar's poetry is original, layered, equivocal, and rich in references. Like Brodsky, Pogačar
turns to history, but his associations are more reminiscent of John Ashbery and the delightful
strangeness of Tomaž Šalamun.
—Martín López-VegaMarko Pogačar crafts rich, lush poems in a more consistent and refreshing manner than other
poets. His poetry is filled with images that are tough to visualize. His use of language is
rarely referential; it's more in the service of creating linguistic realities, those that exist only in words. Pogačar seems to be constantly testing the ability of language to create worlds.
— Irena Matijašević