|
 Lana Derkać was
born on June 22, 1969, in Požega, Croatia. She graduated from
the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Philosophy.
She writes poetry, prose drama and essay. Her work was published
in large number of Croatian and international newspapers,
magazines and anthologies.
She has published 7 collections of poetry: Wayside Crucifixes (Vinkovci,
1995), Lightbearer’s Refuge (Zagreb, 1996), Eve from Mailbox
(Zagreb, 1997), The Chest for Shadows (Karlovac, 1999), The
Forest Sends Us a Tree By E-mail (Zagreb, 2004), Silence's
Striptease (Zagreb, 2006), Who Did Line Up the Sky-scrapers
(Zagreb, 2006). She also published a book of plays Resignation
(Zagreb, 2000) and a collection of short stories Hearkening to
Angels (Zagreb, 2003). She was awarded Zdravko Pucak Poetry
Prize and Duhovno Hrasce Prize.
She participated in various literary events, at home and abroad.
She took part in International Poerty Festival in Zagreb,
International Festival Curtea de Arges Poetry Nights in Romania,
Struga Poetry Evenings in Macedonia, Kuala Lumpur World Poetry
Reading in Malaysia. Her poems are featured in Poetical Babylon
(project by UNESCO in Rome) and in Rain of Poems above Dubrovnik
(a join project between Chile and Croatia).
Her work is translated into English, German, Spanish, Italian,
Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Romanian, Macedonian, Arabic, Malay,
Malayalam, Oriya.
She also edited two poetry anthologies:
-Kairos in Zagreb (Zagreb, 2006) – poetry selection from
International poetry festival (together with her husband Davor
Salat)
-Third Word (Calicut, 2007) – Post – Socialist Poetry (together
with Indian poet Thachom Poyil Rajeevan).
EDITOR OF DOUBT
In late summer I pulled
17 snowflakes from your spine
You wondered at how carelessly
I examined them, like a customs officer
And sodden, restored them poorly
as the only visible traces
of your good times and bad
as the masterly done
temporal frescos
of your internal walls
At the edge of the forest
I turned those 17 flakes into moss
and then again, clumsily, I gathered them with words
into a silly editor of doubt
into a soldier who turns night
into a strategic anagram
into a monstrous military range
instead of into a bird
TSUNAMI
I put down my cup of tea at the very moment the
TV screen is flooded with pictures of tsunami.
You comment: Once again has Death become the laureate.
This time demonstrating one
of its martial arts in Asia.
I am uncertain whether the waves surging from the screen
compete for its decoration, or are they
lapping against the Apocalypse in their deadly fashion.
I say: Death is sending them.
Each escaping wave its letter
and I really don't know what graphologists are going to say
when they identify segments of its calligraphy.
Combinations are many.
Two shores exchanging letters via the waves.
‘Tis either order, or disorder.
Or the tiny tongues of restlessness and the centre of the Earth.
You ask me: Can you imagine a siren
in uniform, declaring war on the crashing sound of waves
by still more deafening singing?
Even Odysseus shuns her.
Can you recognize sand which dresses up
in camouflage attire, knowing that
it has lost all memory of Hitler and world wars?
I try to assure you:
God watches all killers from the universe
including these waves today
arranged into foam.
And without a telescope it discerns that foam
as accursed bindweed.
EMPTINESS TICKING
You wonder if anybody ever will use up the emptiness
which was born to Cyclops, its mother and its father
so that never again would you hear it ticking
regenerating itself like a new Indian summer
Around the edges of the washbasin
emptiness rules this morning like catarrh
It plays a too gaudy a fresco on the wall
When it begins to hum on Sunday evening
it is invincible
although you recognise its secret code
No sooner you sense it leaving the subway
that it is persistently constructing
in your left lung
you envisage it as an adulteress
and also as one who keeps coming back every time
when Orpheus stands up, folds his newspapers
and drowsily emerges from the erythrocytes
like from some suburban bus
into the tree crowns and the green writings of the suburbs
|
